Re: Do Bigger Seeds in a seed packet grow bigger plants?

Dear Judyann,

There have been quite a few scientific experiments asking the same question you asked and they have found different answers depending on which species of plant they looked at. For large seeds some species had seedlings which grew faster (radishes, see ref. 1) or they survived in the ground for longer. Smaller seeds have been shown to germinate faster (peas, see ref.2).

Big seeds often produce seedlings which have a higher growth rate (they grow faster) than seedlings from smaller seeds but this doesn't necessarily mean that they will go on to produce a bigger plant overall. The size your pumpkins will grow to depends on a lot of different things that are likely to happen to them throughout their life-time, such as how often you water them, whether you give them fertiliser ("plant food") and how crowded they are.

Seeds contain a tiny plant embryo (this grows up to become the seedling) and lots of energy rich food that the young plant uses to help it to grow. So larger seeds will have more "food" in them than small seeds.

If you want to find out the answer for your seeds why don't you do a simple experiment? Divide your seeds into small and large ones and put them onto separate squares of damp cotton wool or blotting paper. Keep the cotton wool damp and see how many days it takes the large and small seeds to germinate. Then measure the size of the seedlings over a few days or a week and compare the sizes of seedlings from small seeds and large seeds.

Finally you could plant some seedlings from small seeds and some from large seeds, grow them into plants and see if large seeds produce bigger pumpkins!

I hope this helps you to answer your question, good luck!

Yvonne Buckley

Ref.1: Stanton,M.L. 1984 Seed variation in wild radish: affect of seed size on components of seedling and adult fitness. Ecology 65:1105-1112

Ref.2: Hendrix,S.D. 1984, Recations of Heracleum lanatum to floral herbivory byDepressia pastinacella. Ecology 65:191-197