Which Way Do I Grow?
Here’s a great experiment to see how gravity works on a plant seed and also learn how to grow something all on your own!
You Will Need:
- A cob of ripe dry field corn or corn seeds from a store-bought packet
- Clear glass or plastic jars with screw top lids
- Paper towels
- Water
- A sunny window
- A big pail lined with rocks and filled with good soil
- Pencil and paper
Instructions:
- Take your seeds or rub some kernels off the cob of dried corn.
- Wet a paper towel and fold it into a ring inside one of your jars.
- Stuff some more wet paper towels into the centre of the ring.
- Place several kernels of corn between the wet paper towel ring and the outside of the jar, so you can see the corn through the jar.
- Place the kernels with some having the point of the seed facing up, and some having the point facing down.
- Prepare as many jars as you want in the same way.
- Place in your sunny window.
- Each day, turn the jars a quarter turn, so all the seeds get equal sunshine.
- Add water to the paper towels with a watering can when they begin to dry out. Not too much!
- Watch what happens!
Did the roots come out of the pointed end or the round end? If they came out of the top of the seed, what are the roots doing now? Are you seeing gravity in action?
- When the corn sprouts are about 3 inches long, take them GENTLY from the jars and plant them in your bucket of soil.
- Water regularly and keep the bucket in a sunny place.
- When the stalks are about 2 feet high, transplant to the garden. You should have corn by July if you started in April!
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