Mycorrhizae is a natural fungus that makes the hard-to-capture nutrients available to plants, allowing them to be bigger, and healthier. It is also known to speed up the pest-defense mechanisms in plants. The goal of this experiment was to see if the mycorrhizae could be used as effectively as commercial pesticides.

To accomplish this goal, a total of 270 milkweed seeds were planted into 50 mL cups of sterilized soil. Five seeds were placed into each cup. The soil was sterilized in an oven so that none of the dirt had preexisting organisms. First the seeds were sprouted in petri dishes and once sprouted, got transferred into the dirt and planted into 9 rows, each row having a different level of mycorrhizae in each plant cup(49, 3g, 2g, 19, Og). There was a second row planted without mycorrhizae to spray with pesticide, seeing how affective it was with this pant and pest coupling.

They were allowed to grow for 3 weeks. During this time, it was found that the 3g row had the highest average growth (more than 1cm taller than the rest); followed by 4g; no mycorrhizae; 1g; and lastly, 2g. To enclose the bugs, mesh screen was placed to the plants and enclose the bigs around them. On the top of this, there were5 holes cut (one at each corner and one in the center) to drop the milkweed bugs through. Upon releasing the bugs, the holes were taped up and the bugs were free to eat. The plants were observed at three different times to see where the bugs preferred to eat.

A majority (77%) of the bugs were on the control and pesticide-sprayed rows. Observations were taken on bug arrangement at three different times. On average (rounded to the nearest whole number), there was 1 bug out of the 40 on the row with plants given 4g of mycorrhizae; 2/40 bugs on the 3g row; 1/40 bug on the 2g row; 2/40 bugs on the 1g row; 7/40 bugs on the control row; and 7/40 bugs on the pesticide row.

With these results, it is clear to see that the mycorrhizae has a positive impact on the plants resistance to pests. Mycohhizae can limit the use of pesticides. For future studies, it would be beneficial to do this experiment on a larger scale, with more trials, and find the specific level at which the mycorrhizae is most affective.

In this experiment the affects of mycorrhizae were compared with a chemical-based pesticide. It was proven that the mycorrhizae is better at helping the plants defend pests.