The seeds will germinate (sprout) and become seedlings. This circle of leaves you see in the pictures is called a 'rosette'. This is the stage where I do my research. Sometimes, I put the plants in cold or even freezing temperatures. Other times, I expose them to chemicals. Seeing how plants with modifications react to stress allows me to compare to unmodified plants and understand what I've modified.
If the plant survives all that, then it will finally reach the reproductive stage, producing a tall flower stalk, and then thousands of tiny seeds. It takes about six weeks to go from seed to seed. That's another reason Arabidopsis is used: it's incredibly fast growing!
I always get excited when I see Arabidopsis plants after a few weeks of separation, because it feels like greeting a familiar friend. However, the first time I saw it, I remember thinking that the plants were really cute. After all, they're neat, compact plants. They make a bit of a mess when they flower, but otherwise they're very well behaved.
Although Arabi is native to Eurasia, it grows well in all areas that are disturbed- such as roadsides, construction sites, and dirt walkways. That means it has become common even across the US. In fact, the seeds I use for my research are descended from a plant in Columbia, Missouri. In the lab, we keep the plants under artificial growth lights. We have special chambers that control the temperature, humidity, light intensity, length of day... Everything you could possibly need to mimic real life in controlled conditions!
