The effect of different wavelengths on the germination time of Arabidopsis thaliana wild type and mutant type seeds

Abstract

The main objective of this experiment was to investigate how different light wavelengths affect the seed germination of Arabidopsis thaliana mutant, cer10, and wild types. In this experiment, we covered trays of petri dishes that had wild-type and mutant seeds with different coloured acetate sheets: red, blue, green, and clear as control.  The seeds were grown in a 17 degrees Celsius incubator, and we observed and recorded the growth of Arabidopsis thaliana using light microscopes for approximately one week. After 72 hours, it was observed that the mean number of germinated seeds was the highest (5.75 ± 2.387 for mutant and 5.25 ± 0.796 for wild type) for natural light compared to other colours even though the differences were not statistically significant. After 96 hours, red light had a significantly larger number of germinated seeds (9.5 ± 0.919) compared with other wavelengths of light for both mutant and wild types; red light correlated to faster seed germination. The difference was statistically significant between red and blue light, even though the trend was still present in the comparison of the red light with the other two wavelengths.  We reject our null hypothesis; red wavelengths of light will slow or have no effect on the germination of Arabidopsis thaliana. Additionally, we tested another set of hypotheses regarding the difference in the number of germinated mutant cer10 and wild type seeds. According to the results, we fail to reject our null hypothesis; mutant type seeds germinate faster.