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The Effects of Radiation on Plants and the Ecosystem

Sarthak Gupta

The Sun emits all kinds of Electromagnetic waves, mostly Ultraviolet, Visible, and Infrared. The Earth’s atmosphere blocks most of the high energy radiation, with the help of the ozone and other gaseous layers. However, with the emergence of industrial factories, power plants, and cars, the atmosphere is being polluted and depleted. As the production of chlorofluorocarbons continues to destroy the Ozone layer, greater amounts of the sun’s radiation reach the earth and affect the plants. We believe that if plants are affected by the radiation, then they will grow abnormally due to denaturation of protein and DNA damage, thus resulting in a reduction in growth. To test the hypothesis, we irradiated the seeds of the plants with microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, and x-ray light. In our data, the control group exposed to no radiation germinated the fastest. Therefore, we concluded that the radiation caused a mutation in plant’s DNA, causing their growth and time to germinate to be affected negatively.