Heidi has become interested in gardening. She has planted a small potted garden

Question

Heidi has become interested in gardening. She has planted a small potted garden in her dorm room, but she is distressed because her garden will not grow. She waters the plants every few days, just like the gardening books say. She has placed them near the window to get light, but her roommate, Mary, insists on keeping a translucent green curtain in the window. Mary wants to keep the curtain closed because she likes to sleep late, and she often forgets to open it when leaving for class. Heidi hasn’t made a big deal about it because it is translucent and lets some light through.

      One morning, Heidi asks Mary to stop at a plant nursery to buy some fertilizer on her way home from work. Mary says that she can save Heidi some money by getting some fertilizer from her dad’s storage shed when she goes home the next weekend. Mary’s dad is a corn farmer and has all the best plant products. When Mary returns from home, she brings Heidi a bit of fertilizer in a paper bag labeled Aatrex.

      After fertilizing the plants once, Heidi notices that the plants seem to be dying—the leaves are turning yellow around the edges. Finally, Heidi asks Mary to drive her to a local plant nursery so that she can ask someone who works there why her plants are dying. When she arrives at the nursery, Heidi tells everything to an employee named John. John tries to hold back the laughter as he explains to Heidi why her plants are dying.

      Address the following questions (but feel free to add more information): What is Heidi’s biggest gardening mistake? Why aren’t the plants growing? Why are they dying (include the gory molecular details)? What does Heidi need to do to fix the problem?

Note: Aatrex is the commercial name for atrazine, an herbicide that inhibits electron transport.

Explanation / Answer

Heidi Biggest garden mistake is to apply the herbiside on garden plants.

The plants in heidis garden were not growing because of poor light or due to shade avoidance (due to dark room or transperent curtains) as a result plants were not able to carry on photosynthesis properly and also increases the amount of arsenic absorption from soil.

Atrazine ,a herbiside is used as a farm fertilizer to kill broad leaf and grass weeds.It kill plants by disrupting and mimicking plant hormones and by blocking photosynthesis.Atrazine kill young flowers and young foliage of plants as plants absorb atrazine through roots and foliage and gets accumulated at the growing tips and young foliage plants.

To fix the problem the foliar tips should be pruned off and water the plants throughly to dilute the chemical.Also expose the plants to abundent sunlight.

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