Comparative study between the production of indoor plants and outdoor plants?

Question

Comparative study between the production of indoor plants and outdoor plants?

Answer 1

If you're asking about running an experiment to compare the growth rates (as a proxy of primary production) of indoor vs. outdoor plants, the design would be relatively simple (if we ignore some complicating factors):

1. Obtain a good number of potted plants of the same species, preferably all about the same size -- obviously, you need to pick one that can survive outdoors where you live.

2. Randomly assign half the plants to be indoor plants, and the other half to be outdoor plants.

3. Mark (with flagging tape, or the like) a number of leaves on each plant, and measure their length and maximum width.

4. Other than that difference in location, attempt to treat your plants in the same manner in terms of watering schedule, fertilizing (or not), etc.

5. At set intervals of time, remeasure the same leaves. Also, you may decide to keep track of production of new leaves, shriveling of old ones, etc.

6. At the end of the experiment, do one final measure of leaf area and compare the two treatments to assess whether growth rates were actually higher in one group on average than in the other.

Caveats: The results of this experiment will likely depend greatly on the species you chose, where you live, the season that it is, etc. So, you would not be able to make sweeping conclusions about the difference in the two rearing environments on plant growth. To do that, you would need to repeat the experiment under different combinations of species, place, season, etc.