Susan is active on her school's drill team and in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History science club, Quasars to Sea Stars. She looks forward to "a fascinating career in a scientific field."
The invasive giant cane plant Arundo donax grows to over 30 feet tall, chokes out native species, and clogs culverts and channels. The herbicide most commonly used to kill the plant costs up to $15,000 an acre and fails to kill about 25 percent of the plants. Susan wanted to see if she could improve on this outcome.
In her research seeking a natural method to eradicate Arundo donax, Susan discovered allelopathic plants, which can inhibit the growth of other plants. She made extracts of four different plants by boiling them in water and allowing them to steep to a 27 percent concentration. The extract of Nerium oleander proved most effective, eliminating 98.5 percent of giant cane plants in her test patch.
