Total seeds sprouted by species (aka Real Data!)

Total number of seeds sprouted by species over a 20 day period

Would you look at that - a real chart from real data.  Pretty cool right?  (I think so!)  Since there is so much data it's good to start by looking at the big picture.

These are the spinach, lettuce and mizuna seeds planted in all those different low tunnels we built for the germination trials.  I noticed germination trends by species and decided to ignore the fact that the seeds were grown under different conditions to compare the three species.  This chart shows distinctive germination characteristics of each species:

• Mizuna, the fast growing mustard green, was the first species to have any seeds germinate.  The germination rate increased quickly from days 9 to 12 and then started to decreased.  Of the 3360 mizuna seeds planted 60% of them germinated.
• Spinach is known for being a plant that can grown in cool conditions, but like many cold tolerant crops it would prefer to germinate at warmer temperatures.  Here we see that it is slower that mizuna to start germinating but, that 14 days after planting there is a huge spike in germination.  Spinach had a 71% germination rate.
• Lettuce is not a very tough plant.  Only 52% of the seeds germinated and it took nearly 20 days for that to happen.

That's just the beginning of looking at all the data.  Besides germination rates there is also temperature and light data to take into account.

* Because I am a grad student this chart is built with  Real Data, but in no way am I recommending anything other than being excited about plants and eating.  *