Are red pigments present on leaves all year round?
Marit Knudsen, Jessica Hoskins, and Sarah Finnegan CU Boulder, Fall 2006 Have you ever wondered exactly when the red pigments in leaves arise? Are red pigments in leaves manufactured in the fall or are they present all year round? From previous lab experiments, we concluded that green leaves have Chlorophyll a, Chlorophyll b, Carotenes, and Xanthophylls. Depending on the pigments color, a wavelength can be measured using a spectrometer to determine the pigments exact name. So, if leaves have several pigments than the red pigments should be present all year. To test our predictions, we used equal proportions (6.22g) of red and green leaves from a Maple tree. We began to extract the pigment from the leaves using a mortar and pestle plus water to attain an equal concentration of both pigments. Unfortunately, the concentrations were not concentrated enough so we proceeded with an alternative. We then placed the 6.22g of each color into a blender containing 20 mL of Methanol to extract the
