I need help with mung bean experiment for my gr 11 biology class

Hi, for my online biology course I'm supposed to do an experiment about plant growth using the mung bean. (*if someone knows more about a different easy-to-grow seed then please share that information, it doesnt have to be a mung bean, I just found the most info on it)

I don't have time to grow the plant, so I've decided to just try to guess what will happen.

The problem is I need help knowing the rate at which a mung bean normally grows since I am supposed to have labelled diagrams every 4 days after germination and measurements of how tall the stem is.

I've found lots of stuff online to help me figure out the germination, but I can't really find anything about after germination.

[Of the two things I did find about growth, one had a picture after a week and 2 weeks of growth, but no measurements. It's hard to guess from a picture how tall something is, but my guess is that it after a week it was about 10 or 12 cm tall? The second picture didn't look that much different other than some extra leaves and was taller (but I have no idea how tall). And the other one I found had measurements, but they seemed really off. He said he had just watered it normally and it only grew a little over a centimetre after 10 days... So that didn't seem right at all.]




So does anyone have an average idea of how fast a mung bean grows? Or how tall it usually is after a week or two of growth (planted a cm deep in soil)? It doesn't need to be exact, I just need a general idea so I can attempt to guess the rest of it.




[If you need anymore information about my experiment in order to help me please ask and thank you to anyone who can attempt to help me. Here's a bit more info on my experiment in case its helpful:

I was asked to germinate 8 mung beans, and then after they are germinated I must grow them for about 2 weeks in 4 different conditions.

My choices of conditions are to either to use different amounts of salt or water (or different types of water). I think salt might be easier to guess with, so I've chosen one condition with no salt, one with 0.25% salt concentration in water, one with 0.5% salt concentration in the water and one with 3.5% salt concentration (salt water, I figure that will be easy since it won't even germinate). I'm not really sure what the salt will do other than slow down the growth and probably dry it out and change the color so if anyone knows a lot about that and wants to help, then that would be cool too.]

 

I would suggest you come clean with your teacher and admit you haven't started yet.
Then get some mung beans and do as requested, rather that guessing what might happen! The whole point is for you to do the experiment. You may find you actually learn something interesting.

You might concider using distilled water in one pot. Rain water for another. Tap water for a third pot.

 

I was going to reply something similar. There are a few growth charts for plants online, but the variables are great. I don't think you can really guess these things and I am not sure what you would learn from that either.

Not sure if you got started late on the class, but I tend to agree with Silver Surfer, that it might be better to contact the instructor to try to get a few more weeks to actually do the experiment. Or if you stated late, maybe you could just make observations of another students experiment? (Maybe not--online course.) Seems better than guessing.

Good luck with the course.

 

My teacher even said it's okay. My book came late for the last lesson, so I wasn't aware of it until now, with a week left in the deadline and I still need time for the exam.

And No, you can't change the deadline, you can only restart the course, that's why my teacher was okay with it.

So it's more like a detailed hypothesis now than an experiment. And I still must use what I learned to determine what I think will happen.

 

OK, I'll chip in here because I've had this sort of thing happen to me (in G. 12, but still.)

Mung bean generally sprouts in 5-7 days, and you get a push of growth from the emergence of the sprout to emergence of leaves (about 2-3 cm). Then it goes on to grow about 1-2 cm every 2-4 days, depending highly on soil quality, water quality, light, and temperature.

 

Wow THANK YOU. Finally some one that understands and can help me. Almost everyone that responded to me on other forums had to accuse me of cheating or just told me to plant them anyway. Thank you again that really helped me out. Now I can try to figure out how salt will affect it. Thanks again :)

 

Kerrik, do you have access other plants growing that you can test salt water on (ones that you don't mind killing)? That would be an interesting experiment in and of itself, and you'd get an idea of how your theoretical mung beans would react.