Cold or Hot Potato Rot
Plant Science- Grade:
- 10
- Teacher:
- Tayde Lund
My project is about the effect of temperature on potato rot. I frequently see my parents putting potatoes on the counter, but always thought that storing things in the fridge would keep them ripe, just like our other fruits and vegetables. To complete this project, I put a pair of potatoes in each of three temperature environments. One pair was in the fridge to represent a cold storage environment, one pair was under a heat lamp to represent the hot storage environment, and one on a desk to represent a room temperature environment. I then looked at the level of rot that each pair ended with. After 44 days, using a grading system, I decided that the hot potatoes averaged the most rot with the room temperature potatoes having the second most. This project is important because it shows that the bacteria and microorganisms that cause rot are more prevalent in hotter climates. This leads us to note that the colder the temperature, the longer the potatoes would last.
I appreciate your creativity in not accepting the common wisdom – yes, I store my potatoes at room temperature also – and testing to find out.