About This Project

We hypothesize that when grown in nutrient rich water avacado seeds will sprout faster than seeds grown in tap water.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Today is Cinco de Mayo, so naturally we made guacamole. After slicing each avocado in half we realized that we had 5 avocado seeds that were destined for the trash. We rescued these avocado seeds and want to create an environment where they can thrive. Justin has experience sprouting avocados and had a sprouted avocado on his desk. We wondered if the water from his sprouted avocado would provide an environment that encourages new avocado seeds to sprout faster.

What is the significance of this project?

Many people attempt to grow avocados at home. There are no resources online that give you a foolproof plan for how to grow avocados. We are starting with one small experiment, but the mission of our team is to develop a method so that anyone anywhere can be an avocado sprout (and hopefully tree) owner. We plan to do more avocado experiments after this one regardless of whether or not this experiment is conclusive.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of this project is to monitor 5 avocado seeds over a course of at least 90 days. We have 2 control avocado seeds that will only receive New York City tap water. We have 3 experimental avocado seeds that will receive avocado water (donated from Justin's sprouted avocado seed), ginger water, or Tea's Tea unsweetened green tea. We will monitor the growth of the avocados every day with photos. From these photos we will measure the length of the root daily to produce data showing how fast each avocado root is growing.