Science Experiment

Green Thumbs Plant Lemon

by Utkrista Mulmi with Anita Bhattarai

I have had experience planting things so I had the lead as Pallav sir was hospitalized. We had been collecting Citrus limon (common name lemon) seeds in preparation of reaching the goal of germinating and taking care of 100 lemon saplings this season.

Last year, our experiment with the avocado (Persea Americana) was a huge success, we were able to germinate and bring to average 3 feet 52 avocado plants and send them to the village in Dhading. Well this year, since we will do the same with citrus limon.

In 2017 we did manage to germinate and plant 7 saplings of Citrus limon, up to that stage I have to say we were successful but if you go to the garden now and check, you will find only one, Vidheha’s lemon plant alive. Hopefully, we will be able to do a better job this year.

The objectives were to

-         Research the specimen

-         Discuss the specimen

-         Initiate the germination process

-         Link up languages to this and paint everyone’s thumbs green so they grow a “green thumb!”

-         Document and publish the process over the long term

Desk review

When I was researching the resources online, the material was endless and, like the fruit, left a sour taste in the mouth. There was too much and finding the right material was hard. Lemon was actually found in Asia. It is an evergreen tree. 

 

The lemon tree grows up to 6 feet long. It yields fruit that has very good deposits of vitamin C. It has Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, Vitamin A, Vitamin E. It makes skin healthier and stronger, it helps people lose weight, it makes breath fresher, it helps lessen or protect against the flu or colds, it helps prevent diabetes, constipation, high blood pressure, fever and it is indeed an amazing little fruit.

For farmers, one fruit can yield up to 10 rupees so the benefits of growing lemon is great as it give fruit year round. Lemon’s acidic juices helps cleaning. The calorie per fruit can be as much as 2.

Common name: Lemon

Scientific name: Citrus Limon

Kingdom: Plantae

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Sapindales

Genus: Citrus

Family: Rutaceae

Discussion

We discussed the Citrus limon’s scientific classification and health benefits. Since some of us hadn’t had lemon we all tasted lemon in its entire souricity! Some of us didn’t like the taste but some liked the sourness and said it was juicy. 

Well, next time, I think I will suggest that the fruit be used to make lemonade, which will make everyone very very happy I am sure. [Next week, I will be adding quotes from my little and large friends, they have been assigned to blog on the topic during the weekend.]

The Experiment

Last time, we mucked around with the internet process. Take the seed, remove the outer skin, wet in in tissue, pack it up in cellophane wrap, and after 10 days instead of germination, we had rotten paper and seeds. So we will do this the Nepali way which was much more successful, plant the seed in earth in plastic cups. Can’t go wrong with that!

We got the lemon seeds out of the moist tissue that we had stored them in. We scanned through all of the seeds and threw out the bad seeds or ones that were smaller. I shared with everyone about the lemons we were planting again! After everyone knew what we were doing, we went out got some plastic cups from then kitchen then we put earth in all of them. 

Then we planted the seeds and then dipped our thumbs in green paint. We planted the seeds sideways then we watered them. I taught them how to plant the seeds and water them, after all, I have done this before!

Painting

After planting the seeds we painted our thumbs green because they say a person with a green thumb grows a forest or vegetables and fruit at least. I painted mine with a flower, deviating is always nice. 

After painting the thumbs we checked out our work and then washed our hands because sometimes parents are funny, they go eeeee, how did your finger go greeeeeen!

The redo!

Anita: When Pallav sir came back from the hospital he looked at the cups and asked us to redo the whole thing as we had made the earth too wet and some had also kneaded the earth. This time we were more gentle with the soil so that Oxygen could pass through and water could moisten better.

Documentation, reporting, and publication

We will be adding to this work over the year and will let you know of our progress. The desk review, the photos, the sketch work (still to be made), and individual commentaries are to come in. But here is the report so far and its up, as you know on our blog page, science and technology section.