Student Research Reports

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reland has a large agricultural community. ​Overuse of cattle slurry and synthetic fertilisers is causing a significant pressure on our water systems, impacting over 1000 of our water bodies. ​This is caused by runoff from the land (EPA.ie). ​Last March, the Biodiversity Officer in our local Community Garden approached us with a problem. The soil tests showed potassium was greatly depleted, also the vegetable garden area had no worms. He did not want to use slurry or synthetic fertilisers. We were keen to research this problem and find the most natural solution. We are living in an agricultural area so we hope our research will encourage local farmers to adopt natural ways to nourish their land. We wanted to discover which natural compost a) gives the best growth of vegetables, b) increases Potassium most efficiently and c) is best at encouraging worms We decided to set up 4 test beds last March using horse manure, seaweed compost, a biological compost, and a mixture of all 3. A control bed was left untreated. Horse manure gave the best growth for onions, potatoes, carrots, and beans. All composts improved potassium levels. We won an award for our project in May at the Globe Ireland National Competition and presented the findings at the European Globe Student Conference in Prague. We extended the study now to research the runoff water quality of each natural fertilizer. We also compared this with slurry and synthetic runoff in soil from the same source.