Hi Cory,
You'd have better luck on the cactus & succulent forum. There has been only one member that I know of on the houseplant forum who might have a good answer, but she doesn't come here any more. If you do find out please report back to us. You might also see if you could see if either Kelly Griffin, (all his hybrids are to die for!) or Karen Zimmerman (at Huntington Gardens, her plants are also amazing) would do an interview.

I forgot to mention I think Kelly Griffin works at Rancho
Soledad Nursery in the Bay Area. He does many C&S society meetings up and down the CA coastline.

I'd suggest if you've only got one semester, to find other plants that are faster growing, especially if you wish to grow from seed.

I hang out at C&S Forum a lot; I don't hear folks discussing seed gown Aloes. Am guessing pups would be best, but this is going to take too long for your purposes.

Why not use easy & fast plants, says like citrus? I ate some tangerines/clementines 2 wks ago, I threw a handful of seeds in mix, covered them in a hinged plastic container & today, I see a dozen little plantlets abt 2" tall each.

Don't know why you chose Aloes, but they're not practical for experiment you've mentioned so far.

Fresh seed of some succulents like Aloe will germinate very fast but then the tiny plant may just sit there, sometimes for years. (VBG - there were more than one reason that Mendel chose peas.)

Cory, what is the premise of your independent study? If we knew that, we might be able to suggest something that might meet your goals.

Thank you for your responses. pirate_girl, I chose aloes because there is alot of information I can use to make a really interesting presentation about them. Plus, they're sweet looking and helpful to have around the house. But, as i feared, it would just take too long to actually do this project on them. Cirtus are a good idea though, so thanks. I was also thinking about doing the project on carnivorous plants and doing some sort of experiment with a few different species of them.

rhizo_1, Basically, the project is that I have to grow and research a plant, its uses, its history, etc... and/or do some sort of experiment with plants and tell why it did/didnot come out the way I expect it to. The semester just started and I wanted to get a jumpstart on growing whatever plant I decide to grow.

Cory, sounds very interesting.
Your best bet would be to start with Aloe pups.

Citrus would be an excellent choice if you had more than a semister to work with.
Since you're in zone 6, and have 'x' amount of time, the quickest seed would be annual, like Zennias; they germinates 10-15 days.

Aloe Vera would be exciting, too. Espeically since it's used medicinally for everything from burns to anti-carcinogenic agents. And other ailments. Some which are no longer used in the US.

Aloe Vera pups would be your best bet. There's a ton of information on the net, including Wikipedia. Keep us posted, and do tell which plant you chose. Good luck, Toni

Aloe pups, Vera or not aren't going to get too far in ONE semester, can't see where it would be worthwhile. I'm trying to warn you I think it's going to be a wasted effort.

you may have to go with peas, you could have a second generation by the time the semester is through.

How fast do aloe pups root? Maybe, if you want to stick with aloe, you could do a rooting experiment, see how much rootage you can get on aloe pups, rooted under different conditions, in the course of the semester? Get a whole bunch of pups, and treat them differently -- say, root them in 2-3 different types of media (lots to pick from: water - peat - gravel - sand - perlite - vermiculite - bark - glass marbles - styrofoam peanuts -- whatever else you can get your hands on); or put some rooting hormone on some pups but not on others; or stick some pups into rooting medium right away but for the others let the cut dry off before you put it into soil; or vary the amount of water the pups get: say water some once a week, then another group water once a month, and with the third group wait for the pups to actually have roots before they get any water. I'm sure there are tons of other things to try. You could ask on cactus & succulent forum, I'm sure they could tell you some good and bad ways to root aloes, and you could then try both the good and the bad methods for your experiments, and see if your results are consistent with what people on C&S forum would predict.
Good luck with your class.

Alenka,

Maybe you don't recognize my handle or name but I AM from the C&S forum (since Spring 2001). This is why I have made the effort here to dissuade this experiment. It's pretty likely not to work.

In particular, if I read some of your suggestions correctly, you're advocating watering some of the pups BEFORE they have any roots.

C&S people will tell you that is NOT OK; one must not water plants w/out roots as all that will happen is a quick invitation to rot & death. Plants without roots cannot take up.

I grow 8-10 different Aloes (indoors in NYC) & dated a dedicated Aloe maven for a couple of yrs. While you may not know it or know me, I DO know what I'm talking abt here & am trying hard to save Cory from unnecesary & predicatable failure(s).

Albert, thanks for the support abt Aloes being slow. May I pls ask, what is 'VBG'?

Hi, pirate_girl! I'm certain that you know what you are talking about -- you sound like you do, and you did mention that you hang out on the C&S forum, so I have no reasons to doubt your knowledge!. What I was suggesting is to pick a rooting method that will most certainly work on aloes, another method that will absolutely certainly fail on them, and then, say, one more that is in between, that may give mixed results. Cory said that the class project requires an experiment -- so this could be one thing to try. If (or, rather, when :) ) a pup fails in water, that's an experimental result too -- it simply gives extra proof that water is not a right medium here. And if another pup is potted, say, in some gravel (would that be a good medium? Not sure, that's just the one I'd go with, but I grow only a few succulents, so I'm no expert), and not watered till there are roots, and if that pup does well -- then that's evidence that this is a good method. You know what I mean? This experiment would merely produce some more evidence that some rooting methods do indeed work much better than others. Kind of like verifying the knowledge that already exists in the community. That's why I said in my post, "You could ask on cactus & succulent forum, I'm sure they could tell you some good and bad ways to root aloes, and you could then try both the good and the bad methods for your experiments, and see if your results are consistent with what people on C&S forum would predict."

But if Cory wants to make sure that no aloe pup is harmed in the conduction of the experiment :) , then this is definitely not the right experiment to try, you are absolutely right!

And, well, there are definitely many many interesting experiments to try. I guess what I'm trying to say is, in the timeline of one semester, aloe pups won't do much more than hopefully grow a few roots. So if one is to stick with aloe pups for an experiment like this, it probably would have to be a rooting experiment. That's all. But maybe I'm wrong, like I said, I'm no expert. And there are certainly other awesome plants to use for a project!

alenka, I like the idea of a rooting experiment. I could center my research on commercial aloes and do a few different types along with trying different rooting methods even. The problem is, I don't think I have enough growing space for all of them. And I'm not sure how I would get an ahold of that many pups, (suggestions, pirate_girl how'd you get your 9? or did your grow them from pups?)

Also, if I do decide to do aloes, as long as the pup/seed that I plant grow, I can probably use a store-bought plant to slice open for burn wounds if I need to. I just have to be able to prove that I grew at least one plant and have a good amount of research to support my little baby aloe. I don't necessarily have to grow any plant from a lowly seed to a massive tree. you know?

and besides, I want to have a handy little aloe growing in my house. they're so cute and spiky:)Plus, growing something from a seed or pup will feel really gratifying when, years later, its a burn-healing, anti-carcinogenic monster.

Well, I got my Aloes in some less common ways:

* I belonged to a C&S Society for 10 yrs.;

* Still belong to Indoor Gardening Society where some
members overlap w/ above Society;

* Have made numerous plant friends thru the yrs. who
given or swapped me plants, a pup or 2; and

* dated an Aloe collector who was exceptionally generous
w/ gifts of plants & sharing any plants I admired

a few were pups, most were not.