Plants Growing in different places

[firefighter]

Our class planted seeds in plastic cups to watch them grow through the spring. One of the students suggested that we grow one of the plants in our classroom (which does not have a window) and the other plants in the window of a different classroom. The plant that has only been in our windowless classroom is growing much faster than the other plants. We are wondering if you might be able to tell us why this is happening?

[MS15]

Hi firefighter,

This could be due to many reasons and some question one can ask to troubleshoot are:
1. Was the same quality and nature of seeds used in both cases?
2. Was the quality of the soil and how the seedlings were planted in the soil, identical?
3. Were they watered identically i.e. was the plant which is not growing over-watered or under-watered?

If all of these were exactly the same between the two plants, then it's also possible that the plant in the window is getting far too much more sunlight than it requires. You can try moving it to a place where it receives indirect sunlight to see if that helps.

It could also be that the plant chosen for the window was weak/unhealthy to start with. I would recommend you to try the whole experiment again with two fresh plants, and keeping all conditions identical as I described above.

Hope this is helpful,
MS

[firefighter]

Thank you so much MS15!
We shall have to see if trying with some new plants works differently!

[MS15]

Dear firefighter,
You're very welcome! Good luck to you and your class
MS