An Experiment to Determine the Growth of Garden Beans

Introduction

This experiment will observe the growth of garden beans over a period of time. It seeks to address the question ‘how fast does a garden bean grow?’ Does it grow in a constant, linear manner, such as one (1) cm. every twenty-four (24) hours or sporadically, hitting growth spurts in certain points in its life cycle? The experiment will also observe and note the conditions under which the common bean plant will show more or less growth.

The garden bean demonstrates an indeterminate growth rate during its life cycle. It does not grow in a constant manner over time. It grows faster in certain period of its life cycle depending upon the conditions of its environment.

Materials and Method

For this experiment, I used four (4) seeds of Phaseolus vulgaris, the common red garden beans. I planted the garden beans in a sealed pot and placed the pot near the window. I watered the garden beans regularly.  I also checked the growth of the garden beans everyday. Two days after the garden beans were planted, I unearth one garden bean to check the growth of the seeds.

I continued watering the garden beans. On the sixth day, I removed the lid from the pot. I continued watering and monitoring the growth of the garden beans until plants regularly for more than one month. I also monitored the temperature and the weather conditions during this time, and whether or not the plants receive any sunlight.

Results

The garden beans were monitored on a daily basis. The weather conditions were also noted to document the days when the beans received direct sunlight.

The garden beans show the following growth during the course of the experiment and observation:

Days	A	B	C
7	1.20	2.10	–
8	6.80	5.50	3.40
9	15.00	13.00	11.00
10	19.00	17.00	15.00
11	20.50	18.00	16.00
12	21.00	19.00	17.00
13	Skip	skip	Skip
14	22.00	20.00	19.00
15	22.50	20.50	19.50
16	23.00	21.00	20.00
17	24.00	21.50	20.50
18	25.00	22.00	21.00
19	26.50	23.00	22.00
20	27.50	24.00	23.00
21	28.00	25.00	24.00
22	28.50	25.50	24.50
23	30.00	26.50	25.50
24	30.50	27.50	26.60
25	31.00	28.50	27.00
26	32.50	29.50	28.00
27	33.50	30.00	29.00
28	35.50	32.00	29.00

 It is noted that the green beans started to grow more rapidly once they are visible from the surface and on days that the plants receive more sunlight. However, after 5 days of rapid growth, the growth rate stabilizes and the garden beans starts growing in a more or less consistent manner. It took less than one week before the first leaf was seen and it took 1 month for the cotyledon of the first stalk to fall off. After more than a month from the time the green beans was planted, the first, second and third stalk was able to produce fourteen, fourteen and fifteen leaves, respectively.

Discussion

The experiment supports the hypothesis that the garden bean has an indeterminate growth rate during its life cycle. It took one week before any growth become visible on the surface. However, once the stalks reached the surface, the growth of the stalk became faster. The growth of the stalk became slightly faster after the first leaf has come out. Based on the experiment, it is shown that the green beans grow faster when it is able to receive more sunlight. This is supported by the fact that the stalks started growing faster after it has reached the surface. After a short growth spurt, the garden beans began growing in a consistent rate. It started producing more  and more leaves during this time.

Even if the garden beans did not become visible to the surface or growing leaves at the same time. The growth rate of the garden beans are relatively the same since they were subjected to the same conditions.