Powdery Mildew (1 Viewer)

[bernicechan89]

Hey all! I just got this really weird question from my bio teacher. Any smart bio students care to help me out? Below is the question:

According to tradition, a French grape farmer in Medoc wanted to stop passers-by stealing his grapes. He put some lime in water and threw it over his grapes. The grapes still looked edible. So he added some blue copper sulfate to the mixture and put up a sign stating that the grapes had been covered in a poisonous mixture, which could harm or even kill people. The French scientist Millardet is credited with realizing that grapes covered with this mixture, called the Bordeaux, were not affected by powdery mildew. Using this info, design a controlled experiment to show that the Bordeaux mixture prevents powdery mildew on grapes. Describe the results you would expect.

Hope somebody know how to answer my question. Thanks in advance!

 

[beentherdunthat]

Hey all! I just got this really weird question from my bio teacher. Any smart bio students care to help me out? Below is the question:

According to tradition, a French grape farmer in Medoc wanted to stop passers-by stealing his grapes. He put some lime in water and threw it over his grapes. The grapes still looked edible. So he added some blue copper sulfate to the mixture and put up a sign stating that the grapes had been covered in a poisonous mixture, which could harm or even kill people. The French scientist Millardet is credited with realizing that grapes covered with this mixture, called the Bordeaux, were not affected by powdery mildew. Using this info, design a controlled experiment to show that the Bordeaux mixture prevents powdery mildew on grapes. Describe the results you would expect.

Hope somebody know how to answer my question. Thanks in advance!

god. I hated experiments.

Anyway, this is what I think you should do.

First of all. Powdery mildew is caused by a fungi. Which is found in the natural environment.1) So we're going to just grow normal graps in a normal environment, and over time we should expect powdery mildew to grow.

- Now 2) We're going to grow the grapes with the mixture on it. No Mildew should appear. (Same environment, Same temperature, same soil mixture, same amount of water, same amount of nutrients, same amount of sunlight... etc. etc. <<--- Controlled variables)

- Independant variable; the presence of the mixture.

- control- Not sure about this. You might need to confirm. But what I would do is place the grapes in a micro-organism free environment [Is this possible with soil??] with pot 1) having no mixture and pot 2) having the mixture. And either way, no mildew should grow. - [as the mildew is instigated via a fungi invasion]

Edit: Carry out this experiment using pots.