Learning About Seeds (1960)

nearly all of the plants that you see around you grow from seeds plants as different as a water lily a pine tree and a grass plant all have seeds seeds have many different sizes shapes and colors here are 20 different kinds these are vegetable seeds it is fun to know plants by their seeds now let's see where seeds come from if you watch a flower such as this one of a melon plant you will see that during the summer a fruit grows from it we call this fruit a melon let's pick the melon fruit and it open to see what is inside see how many seeds there are you can separate the seeds from the fruit and then count them how many seeds do you think there are in just this one melon there were 421 seeds and if each seed grew into a new plant we should have a whole garden of melons the seeds of most plants including corn are ripe in late summer or Autumn but many kind kinds of seeds will not grow until the next spring they must dry out and wait for a few weeks or months before starting to grow if seeds started to grow in the fall they might be killed by Winter's cold when spring comes and the soil is warm and moist the seeds are ready to grow as we have seen seeds are very different in size shape and color they don't look any anything like the pictures of the plants on the packets although seeds look very different from each other they all need the same things to grow the first thing Growing Seeds must have is water if you plant them outdoors in dry soil they won't grow until it rains by speeding up our moving pictures we can see these bean seeds swelling this takes about one day do not leave them underwater too long they need air and you may drown them if we open one of the swelled seeds it separates easily into two parts called seed leaves between the seed leaves is a tiny new plant with leaves and stem already formed the two large seed leaves contain food this food helps the little plant to get started now let's put some moist Pete Moss in a drinking glass and then some swelled beans the Moss will keep the beans moist and also let them have air with the pictures speeded up we can see the bean plants growing watch the bean plants each day and see how fast they grow don't forget to give them water and as soon as the plants are above ground they need light not every seed will grow you may want to know how many plants you will get from a package of seeds You Can Count out 20 of these radish seeds and put them on a piece of wet blotting paper in a covered dish by speeding up the action we can see the growth of several days in a few seconds you can watch the tiny radish plants as they break through the tough seed coats made soft by water now you can see that only one of the 20 seeds did not grow and you can figure out how many plants you will get from a packet of radish seeds if they all grew as well as your sample did how fast do you think plants grow from seeds one of the fastest is the Sunflower let's plant some sunflower seeds and see how fast the plants grow here are the little plants 3 weeks after sewing the seeds they are too close together to grow well so we'll pull up some of them now at 6 weeks from planting the sunflower plants are still too close together so we'll cut off one more of them the sunflower plants are now 4 months old and about 10 feet high they are big plants to have grown in such a short time from seeds to get this big sunflowers need plenty of light water and fertilizer you will find that a sunflower head when ripe has more than a thousand seeds because plants make so many seeds filled with food seeds are very important to man these sunflower seeds are good food but it takes some time to crack enough of them to eat the seeds of some plants are very important for food in the United States and Europe wheat is the most important seed or grain that people use for food but in China Japan and many other parts of Asia millions of people eat rice rice is the seed of the rice plant rice seed is about all that many of these people have to eat when we plant a garden in Spring the soil looks bare there are no green plants at all one month later the garden plants have come up but so have other plants that we don't want between the rows of garden plants are weeds how did they get there let's watch an older dandelion plant for several weeks and with the pictures speeded up see the dandelion flow changing into a head of seeds The Secret of how the seeds form is hidden in the closed flower of the dandelion now the closed head is opening and we can see that each seed has a parachute if you pick a dandelion and blow on it away go the seeds now you can see how the dandelion plants get into your garden another plant that travels by the wind is the maple tree these Maple fruits can blow some distance away from the parent tree but they are much heavier than dandelion seeds and usually fall near the tree that bore them let's have our motion picture camera watch some of them as they begin to grow the wings are often raised straight up like little Flags see if you can find a lawn with little maple trees like these fleshy fruits or seeds May travel a long way inside Birds after this Robin has bathed look in the bird bath here are some cherry pits left behind by the robin here is a cherry seed the robin dropped on the ground next spring it may grow into a young cherry tree many of our common weeds have ways of hitchhiking on you or your pets and other animals if you will drag a woolly cloth through a patch of weeds you can collect some of the weed seeds you can see them best with a magnifying glass with a stronger lens we can see the spines or hooks that get caught in your clothing or the fur of animals in this way seeds can travel a long way when you pick berock from your sweater you may be planting berock seeds in your yard where you don't want them seeds of trees and wild flow and weed seeds are just about everywhere here is an experiment you can do fill a pan or box with some soil from your garden take the box indoors and put it in front of a window keep the soil moist by watering and watch to see what happens with the picture speeded up you can see little plants beginning to grow where did the seeds come from some of the seeds came from the weeds that grew in your garden last year such as this one that dropped its seeds when the wind shook it some fly in from nearby trees collect some winged Maple Keys throw a handful of them into the air watch them spin like tiny helicopters the seeds of milkweed and many other kinds of plants are carried a long way by the wind other seeds are carried in on the fur of animals or on people's clothes and some are dropped by birds all around you are plants growing from SE seeds plant some seeds yourself and watch them grow and look around your neighborhood to see others growing you will find seeds interesting and very important [Music]