Category: Seed of the Week (Page 40 of 167)

Yay, it is time to celebrate the 200th Mystery Seed of the Week.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Mystery Seed of the Week Challenges. I sincerely hope you enjoyed them, even if you didn’t add a comment to play.

If you missed out on any of the recent challenges, they are all organized on a page at the Growing with Science Website with links to the answers for each one. The last two were wheat and wisteria, by the way.

But let’s not keep the winners waiting any longer.

The winners of the Mystery Seed Challenges are:

• First Place:  Craig
• Second Place:  Anna
• Third Place:  Sara

Congratulations, seed experts!

Each of you will be hearing from me shortly via e-mail about the prizes. How it will work is the first place winner will have first choice of the prizes, the second place will have second choice, and third place winner will get the third choice.

After 200 posts, it is time to assess where to go next. Please take a few seconds and let us know if you would like to see Mystery Seed/Seed of the Week continue or if you would like changes. Your input is very important to us.

Once again, thank you for participating.

As a run up to our 200th Mystery Seed, we are doing few new challenges as a contest.  The idea of the challenges will be to introduce some real world reasons why someone might need to identify seeds. Prizes will be awarded in Mystery Seed post 200.

It is our final challenge before prizes are awarded!

Challenge 8.

Scenario:  You work for an emergency room. A couple has just brought in a child who has ingested some flat round seeds.

The seeds are found in these large pods.

The seeds are flat and round, basically coin shaped.

A. What kind of seeds are they?

B. Are the seeds considered to be harmful? That is, do they cause illness and are they considered to be poisonous?

Edit:  The challenge is now closed.  For this week’s challenge, A. 5 points for the first correct identification, and B. 5 points for whether they can cause illness (are considered to be poisonous). I will give 2 points for each subsequent correct answer for each question.

Because I will be tallying the final winners for next week, challenges 7 and 8 will close at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard time on Sunday March 30, 2014.

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Answer to challenge 6:

Challenge 6 is now closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.

I could tell challenge 6 was tougher than some of the others. The seed was from an asparagus fern house plant, Asparagus sp. Here is Arizona our asparagus ferns grow readily out of doors, and produce flower, fruit and seeds. Several species in the genus Asparagus, including asparagus ferns, are considered to be weeds of national concern in parts of Australia.

The winners and the answers to challenge 7 and 8 will be revealed April 1, 2014.

New mystery seeds and Seed of the Week answers are posted on Tuesdays.

As a run up to our 200th Mystery Seed, we are doing few new challenges as a contest.  The idea of the challenges will be to introduce some real world reasons why someone might need to identify seeds. Prizes will be awarded in Mystery Seed post 200.

Challenge 7.

Scenario:  You are a farmer. You ordered some oat seeds and they just arrived on a truck.

Here is a sample of the seeds. Did you get the correct shipment? If not, what kind of seeds are these?

Edit: This challenge is now closed. The answer will be posted in Seed of the Week 200.  For this week’s challenge, 10 points for the first correct identification, 3 points for each subsequent correct answer. 

Only 1 more challenge to go.

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Answer to challenge 5:

The seeds found were indeed from the date palm, Phoenix dactylifera. I based the scenario of an actual case where date palm seeds thought to be 2000 years old were found in the Masada. When a scientist planted them, the seeds were still viable and sprouted. See more details at National Geographic.

Challenge 5 is now closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.

The answers to challenge 6 will be revealed next week.

New mystery seeds and Seed of the Week answers are posted on Tuesdays.