From day 5 onwards, the hypocotyl of each seedling was measured daily until the second stage of germination (the development of leaves) was reached. Heights were recorded on the data sheet (Table 2), from which a mean was calculated using the equation: A line graph (Figure ) was drawn to show the relationship between the percentage of cotyledon remaining and the height of the hypocotyl on each day until stage 2 of germination was reached. The line graph (Figure ) illustrates that the tallest seedlings were grown from the seeds with 100% cotyledon without the testa, and the shortest were grown from the control seeds with the testa remaining. The overall trends of the graph (Figure ) demonstrated that removing increasingly larger proportions of cotyledon decreased the height of the hypocotyl. The most noticeable difference between seedlings was in the sturdiness of the plant and the diameter of the stems. With both the 100% and the 75% cotyledon groups, the stems measured approximately 0.6cm; this reduced to approximately 0.3cm in the 50% and 25% cotyledon groups. The thinner stemmed seedlings from the latter groups were unable to stand upright, bending over due to the weight of the developing plumule. …show more content…
(Plant Life) On day 9, the first seedlings produced open, green leaves, and within three days all the previously germinating seeds had completed germination (Table ), except for one 75% cotyledon seed which failed to thrive. Once the first two leaves had unfolded, the seedlings were able to carry out photosynthesis and were no longer dependent upon the underground energy store within the cotyledon. Removing the testa appeared to have little effect upon the time it took for a seed to reach independence as by day 11 the control group had all completed