A Statistical Analysis of Sunflower Growth
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Campus where you would like to present
SURC 201
Start Date
21-5-2015
End Date
21-5-2015
Keywords
Analysis, Sunflowers, Growth
Abstract
This study considers whether the date at which a maternal sunflower begins to flower has a significant impact on the sunflowers grown from its seeds. The data were collected by Professor Jenny Dechaine of the Department of Biology. She ran an experiment which began with one population of sunflowers. From there, seeds were taken from those flowers in the order in which they flowered. Seeds taken from the sunflowers that flowered first became seed group A. Seeds from the next flowering group became seed group B, and so on until seed group H. The purpose of the experiment was to test if there was any relationship between when a seed's maternal plant flowered and a variety of measurements. Data on over 100 sunflowers were collected, recording such information as the number of leaves a plant had, the lengths of the leaves, and whether or not there was a presence of downy mildew. I performed the analysis of the dataset to find any significant differences in the groups of sunflowers. I provide descriptive statistics of each variable, as well as some combinations of seed groups, to better test if there was a significant difference between seeds with maternal plants that flowered early and those with maternal plants that flowered later.
Recommended Citation
Gowdey, Ashley, "A Statistical Analysis of Sunflower Growth" (2015). Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 36.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2015/oralpresentations/36
Department/Program
Actuarial Science
Additional Mentoring Department
Mathematics
A Statistical Analysis of Sunflower Growth
SURC 201
This study considers whether the date at which a maternal sunflower begins to flower has a significant impact on the sunflowers grown from its seeds. The data were collected by Professor Jenny Dechaine of the Department of Biology. She ran an experiment which began with one population of sunflowers. From there, seeds were taken from those flowers in the order in which they flowered. Seeds taken from the sunflowers that flowered first became seed group A. Seeds from the next flowering group became seed group B, and so on until seed group H. The purpose of the experiment was to test if there was any relationship between when a seed's maternal plant flowered and a variety of measurements. Data on over 100 sunflowers were collected, recording such information as the number of leaves a plant had, the lengths of the leaves, and whether or not there was a presence of downy mildew. I performed the analysis of the dataset to find any significant differences in the groups of sunflowers. I provide descriptive statistics of each variable, as well as some combinations of seed groups, to better test if there was a significant difference between seeds with maternal plants that flowered early and those with maternal plants that flowered later.
Faculty Mentor(s)
Dominic Klyve