Plants death prevention

[Heinsbergrelatz]

I am aware that when plants get exposed to gasoline fumes in air such as plants nearby roads, plants in nearby school traffic area, they seem to die out more quickly and i affected in a bad way one way or another. Now i am interested in finding out how to prevent the plants from dying when exposed to the aromatic hydrocarbons produced by cars, buses etc.... Is there any specific way of doing this, (maybe if not preventing, just improving the sustainability of the plants life under these conditions would also be considered).

 

i would greatly appreciate the help

 

Thank you

[CaptainPanic]

Selective breeding?

[Heinsbergrelatz]

Umm that could be an option, but is there a more straightforward way of doing this?

[Jens]

Are you sure it is the aromatic hydrocarbons and not the different nitrogene oxides and SO₂?

 

Maybe this helps: Study

 

The best way is probably to choose plant species which are resistant:

e.g.: http://suite101.com/article/pollution-tolerant-plants-a48179

[Heinsbergrelatz]

Thanks for the reply. However this is going to be an experiment i will conducting at school where i will have 6 plants in an aquarium exposed to bowl of gasoline where the gasoline will evaporate and as by our hypothesis the plant will die. I m sure it will die out however i want to find a way to improve the life span of the plant. Is there a more direct way for example leave it under a warmer condition or something like that?

[Jens]

Your test does not reflect the situation in cities. The gasoline is burned. Not much is evaporating unburned.

 

However, if you still want to do it like this:

Make sure that really no gasoline is accidentially going as liquid into the soil of the plants as otherwise the effect you want to measure is actually caused by killing roots with liqid gasoline and not by the gases. If your plants are dieing to quickly just use a bowl with much smaller surface (assuming that you aquarium is not completly closed on top).

Higher temperature will simply lead to more gases evaporating....

[deadgerbil7]

Actually it is a good experiment. Not all gasoline is burned. A lot of it is spilled or leaked at gas stations. I just did an experiment on whether or not radish seeds would germinate in gasoline fumes. It turns out the seeds can germinate, but the plants become rather sickly from the fumes right away. Some turned a brownish-red color and the growth in all the plants were stunted. Be careful using the gasoline though. The fumes are stronger than you might think. You can't really tell when you are pumping gas because most gas stations have the black pollution guard on the pump. The fumes are pollution, which is why the EPA required those black pollution guards on all the pumps. It's a fun experiment.