Sam Katowitz

Mrs. Norris
APES
6 February 2015
LD-50 Lab
Collaborators:
Justin Kunz, Deena Kayyali, and CJ Shatilla

Introduction:
The purpose of the LD-50 Lab is to determine the LD50 of salt for radish seeds. LD50 is the
standard measurement of acute toxicity that is stated in milligrams of pesticide per kilogram of
body weight (epa.gov). After gathering all of our information, my classmates and I are going to
make a dose-response curve. A dose-response curve is a curve plotting the relationship between
the dose of a drug administered and its pharmacological effect (dictionary.com). We will also be
using a serial dilution to set up a wide range of concentrations of salt solutions to test on the seed
growth. A serial dilution is the stepwise dilution of a substance in its solution (dictionary.com). A
relevant procedure similar to the ones used in this lab is applying salt to highways. Salt is put on
highways because it lowers the freezing temperature of the ice, making it take longer for the rain
to freeze.

Problem:
- What is the LD50 of salt for radish seeds?
- How does salt affect the initial growth of radish seeds?

Hypothesis:
If the concentration of the salt is around 6 g/L, then 50% of the seeds wont germinate.

Parts of the experiment:

Control Group: petri dish #1
Experimental Group: petri dishes #2 - #6
Independent Variable: concentration of salt
Dependent Variable: germination or radical length
Control Variables: number of seeds, amount of liquid, temperature

Materials:
-

Original concentration of salt (20 ml)

Plain water
60 radish seeds (10 for each water sample)
Paper towels
Petri dishes

Methods:
1. Using 20 ml of the original concentration of salt, perform a serial dilution to create five
different salt concentrations, plus a sixth with plain water.
2. Count out 60 seeds, 10 for each water sample.

3. Put 10 seeds into a folded paper towel, space the seeds out evenly on the paper so that
they do not touch each other.

4. Wet the paper towel/seeds and place in petri dish, be sure to label the petri dish with the
salt concentration for that sample.
5. After 4-5 days examine the seeds, counting the number of each that germinated.
6. For the germinated seeds, measure the length of the radicle.

Data:
Concentrati % seeds
on of salt
germinate
solution
d
(mg/L)

Radic
al
length
(1-10)

-------------C=Control
1.5
3
6
12
24

T=
Mean
radica
l
length
(mm)
10 --------

0
28
4
0
0
0

45
30
6
0
0
0

55
43
8
0
0
0

60
21
1
0
0
0

50
17
12
0
0
0

38
31
11
0
0
0

30
12
2
0
0
0

44
29
1
0
0
0

33
1
0
0
0
0

4
20
0
0
0
0

-----------90%
100%
80%
0
0
0

35.9
23
4.5
0
0
0

Differen
ce in
radical
length:
C-T
----------0
12.9
31.4
35.9
35.9
35.9

Data Analysis:
In the control group, 90% of the radish seeds germinated. Only two other groups of seeds had
some germination in them and those were the groups with 1.5 mg/L of salt concentration and 3
mg/L of salt concentration. The seeds that had 1.5 mg/L of salt concentration added had 100% of
the seeds germinate while the group with 3 mg/L of salt concentration added had 80% of the
seeds germinate. All three other groups had no germinated seeds, probably because there was too
much salt solution added. Plants and other nonliving organisms need water to survive and if a
small amount of salt is added during their growth, it wont affect them. However, if a large
amount of salt is added during their growth, they will be affected and wont grow at all. The bar
graph showed that the more concentration of salt that was added, the less the radical length
became.

Conclusion:
In the lab, I found that when salt is added to water, the growth of the seeds decreased
substantially (http://virginialynne.hubpages.com/hub/Science-Project-How-Does-Salt-AffectSeed-Germination). The plain water and 1.5 mg/L of concentration of salt solution germinated
almost 100% of the seeds while 6 mg/L, 12 mg/L, and 24 mg/L did not germinate any seeds. We
found that there was actually no LD50 because either most of the seeds germinated or none did,
none of them were even close to 50% germinated. This proves that our hypothesis was wrong
(http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/pestlethal.html). I predicted that 6 mg/L of salt
concentration would cause 50% of the seeds to not germinate, but instead, no seeds germinated
when 6 mg/L of salt was added. If I had to make another logical prediction based on the date
from this lab, I believe around 4.5 mg/L of salt concentration would be the LD50 and 50% of the
seeds would not germinate.

Citations:
"Common Menu Bar Links." What Is a LD50 and LC50? : OSH Answers. N.p., n.d. Web. 05
Feb. 2015.
"Introducing Doseresponse Curves." Introducing Doseresponse Curves. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb.
2015.
"Why Do We Put Salt on Icy Sidewalks in the Winter?" Scientific American Global RSS. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2015.

What the 24 mg/L of salt solution did to the radish seeds.

What the plain water did to the radish seeds.