Animal Crossing New Horizons Flower Breeding Experiment
Rumor has it that having your friends water your ACNH flowers for you will not only increase their productivity, but also lead to more/faster hybrid generation. Thanks to COVID, I have a lot of time on my hands. I also have an inordinate fondness for spreadsheets and collating data.
IT’S TIME TO DO SOME SCIENCE PEOPLE
The purpose of this study is to determine whether players from other islands have an effect on the fertility of flowers, for both standard and hybrid varieties.
Flowers watered by off-island players will consistently generate more offspring than flowers watered by the resident player over time.
Procedure (Materials and Methods)
Twenty-two 3x3 plots of various flowers were planted as a test sample. Twenty-two more identical 3x3 plots were planted as a control. The composition of the plots is as follows:
white cosmos x4, red cosmos x1
yellow cosmos x4, red cosmos x1
red mums x4, white mum x1
white hyacinth x4, red hyacinth x1
yellow hyacinth x4, red hyacinth x1
yellow pansy x4, red pansy x1
yellow tulip x4, red tulip x1
white tulip x4, red tulip x1
yellow rose x4, red rose x1
white rose x4, red rose x1
orange windflower x4, red windflower x1
In order to more easily differentiate the test beds from the control beds, I used terraforming to create dirt paths (dark) under the test beds. Each morning I log into the game and immediately water all of the control beds. Then I close the game until I am able to find a friend who is able to visit my island and water the test beds. This is to minimize the chances of random villagers deciding to water any of the flowers in the experiment, which could skew results.
The number and types of newly-generated flowers are recorded daily, and the new plants themselves are removed from the flower beds prior to watering, to maintain each 3x3 plot at a consistent sample size of five plants.
After one week, the test and control beds will be switched; the flowers planted in dirt path will be watered by myself, and the flowers planted in grass will be watered by off-island friends. This is to account for any potential disparity in soil fertility between grass and landscaped paths.
If it rains, flower generation will be recorded separately, and an additional test day may be added to the experiment in order to ensure both consistency and a reasonable confidence interval.
The experiment will end after 14 days of no rain, and the data will be analyzed at that time.
Here is a link to the data collection spreadsheet. It’s view-only, but you can download a copy if you would like to play along at home.
