GUELPH – Grade 11 Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute student Roocha Shukla has found a way to enhance plants’ growth and protect them from stressors including cold, bacteria, and insect pests.
Shukla conducted experiments on how extract from sea buckthorn berries affects the growth and development of plants – a project that won three awards and $8,000 at the Canada-Wide Science Fair (CWSF) at Carleton University in Ottawa in May.
Shukla calls the berry extract Green-Armour.
The week-long science fair, in its 62nd year, is the largest youth science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) event in Canada. This year, almost 400 students in Grades 9 through 12 were selected to participate in the CWSF.
Shukla won three awards with her Green-Armour project – a gold medal senior excellence award, a challenge award for best in division, and a ‘Youth Can Innovate Award.”
The excellence award recognizes the science fair’s top projects with bronze, silver and gold medals.
Roocha Shukla conducted experiments for her Green-Armour project in a lab at the University of Guelph.
Projects that target issues “important to Canada’s youth, the future of our country and the world,” are chosen for the challenge awards, CWSF officials state.
Shukla’s project was in the agriculture, fisheries and food division, and was chosen as “an outstanding project that helps ensure food security, sustainability or competitiveness in agriculture, fisheries or food production.”
The ‘Youth Can Innovate Award’ came with a trophy and cash award, and recognizes “exceptionally innovative STEM projects that demonstrate a practical application in advancing the economic, medical, social or environmental well-being of society.”
Shukla said she’s always been interested in plants, and came up with the idea of the project while working at professor Dr. Traveen Saxena’s lab and greenhouse at the University of Guelph.
She’s been doing experiments in the lab since Grade 9, Shukla said, when she reached out to ask if she could work on science fair projects at the university.
Shukla noticed issues of aphid infestations and bacterial diseases in the greenhouse, and “wanted to find a way to address these problems,” she told the Advertiser.
That’s where the sea buckthorn berry extract comes in. Sea buckthorn is a deciduous shrub, native to Europe and Asia, with clustered orange or yellow berries.
“People eat the berries to improve their health,” Shukla said, which led her to wonder if the berries’ compounds could also be beneficial to plants – something she said had not been tested before.
For Shukla’s science fair project, she diluted buckthorn berry extract and added it to soil.
She found plants growing from the “Green-Armour” soaked soil were taller, had more flowers, and bloomed more quickly.
The plants with Green-Armour applications also showed stronger resilience to bacteria, aphids, and cold stress.
Though Shukla’s experiments focussed mostly on ornamental garden plants, including pansies, impatiens and begonias, she is confident the results would carry over to crops.
Pansies treated with ‘Green-Armour,’ or sea buckthorn berry extract, showed resilience to cold stress.
“More flowers means more fruit – so fruiting plants could expect a larger crop yield,” Shukla said. “Green-Armour can definitely be a product that farmers, growers, even gardeners can use to protect their plants and help them grow better.”
In Shukla’s project outline, she states “This novel product can be applied to fields or greenhouses, boosting plant production and protection.
“Green-Armour can be an alternative to harmful chemicals that are used to control bacterial diseases and infestations on crops.”
To read more about Shukla’s project, visit projectboard.world/ysc/project/green-armour-a-novel-plant-biostimulant.
Going into the project, Shukla wasn’t sure whether Green-Armour would affect the plants at all, so seeing the results at each stage was “really exciting,” she said.
Shukla’s science fair project shows sea buckthorn berry extract has a positive effect on plant growth. Submitted photos
“Every time I completed an experiment I could see how successful it was.”
Shukla said she was surprised by what a significant difference the extract made in decreasing bacteria levels and aphid infestations.
Receiving the awards and national recognition empowered Shukla to feel more motivated to continue working on scientific research.
