Growth Effects of Ground Coffee Beans on Mustard Plants

Introduction

There are many different fertilizers that can be used to help with plant

growth. Coffee has been claimed to help plants grow faster, and to work well as

a fertilizer. One study suggested that the use of coffee grounds as a compost

fertilizer for plants may help increase the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and

potassium in the soil (Jumar et al. 2023). Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium

are important in helping to promote and improve the growth of plants. Another

study found that on top of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, compounds

such as cellulose and lignin could be found in coffee grains (Alifah & Hidayat

2025).

The purpose of our experiment was to test the effects of coffee grounds

on plant growth, specifically mustard seeds (Brassica nigra). Our research

question was: Does the addition of ground coffee to a pot affect the plant height

and number of leaves of mustard plants? Our lab group hypothesized:

HA: The height and number of leaves of the mustard plants will be

affected by the addition of coffee grounds to the pots.

H0: The height and number of leaves of the mustard plants will not be

affected by the addition of coffee grounds to the pots.

Furthermore, I thought that the plants with coffee grounds would grow taller

and produce more leaves than the plants without the grounds.

Methods

We started the experiment by placing a cotton pad in the bottom of our

pots to hold the sand in place. We then rinsed 250 mL of sand in water to

remove the salt from the sand. We placed 125 mL of the sand in the pot and put

0.5g of Osmocote. This is also when we added 1 g of coffee to the treatment

group. We then put the rest of the sand in the pots until the bottom lip pot. We

made a small divot with thumbs and then placed in 2 seeds of Brassica nigra.

We covered the seeds and the pot surface with a vermiculite. We labelled all the

pots. The plants were under 24 hr light and are well watered. We used t tests

performed in excel to detect the differences between the control and the

treatment groups.

Analysis
Over a 4-week growth period the control group grew higher than the

treatment group. Two of our control samples did not sprout, and so they were

entered as NA in r. The average growth height of the control group (32.727 ±

12.073 cm, n=13) was significantly higher (p = 0.01696) than the average

growth height of the treatment group (21.364 ± 8.308 cm, n=13).

control having an average of 10.272 ± 2.687 leaves while the treatment groups

average was lower at 7.923 ± 1.706 leaves. This resulted in a statistically

significant t-test, with p = 0.02316.

Figure 1.1: The final average height of the mustard seeds with coffee grounds

added (21.364 ± 8.308 cm, n=13) was significantly lower (p = 0.01696) than the

final average height of our control (32.727 ± 12.073 cm, n=13).

grown with coffee grounds (7.923 ± 1.706 leaves) was statistically less (p =

0.02316) than the plants grown without coffee grounds (10.272 ± 2.687).

Discussion

We found that the plants without the coffee grounds grew taller (32.727 ±

12.073 cm, n=13) and produced more leaves (10.272 ± 2.687) on average than

the mustard plants with coffee did. This result supports our alternative

hypothesis that the height and number of leaves produced would be affected by

the addition of coffee grounds. We saw a significant difference in plant height (p

allows us to reject our null hypothesis that the insertion of coffee grounds would

change nothing. This evidence does support the prediction that the coffee

grounds would influence the growth. However, it did not support my prediction

that the plants with coffee grounds would grow better than those grown without

coffee grounds.

This result was supported by a study in 2024 that found coffee grounds

had the capability to limit plant growth due to phytotoxicity (Hu et al. 2024).

We found that our plant height was lesser in the treatment (21.364 ± 8.308 cm,

n=13) than in the control (32.727 ± 12.073 cm, n=13). It does differ from a

study conducted in 2025 by N. Alifah and others, which found that plants with

coffee ground fertilizer grew better than those without (Alifah & Hidayat 2025).

This difference could be explained by the fact that they used the coffee grounds

to produce a fertilizer, our experiment used unaltered coffee grounds (Alifah &

Hidayat 2025).

One possible problem with our experiment is that we had two control

plants and one treatment plant that did not sprout. This lack of data points could

have slightly shifted our results. This could be prevented by a more thorough

planting method, that ensures seeds could not be forgotten. Other than this, there

is no way to help make some plants sprout. Another possible error was in the

ranges of plant height growth. For both the treatment (± 8.308 cm) and the
control (± 12.073 cm) we got high ranges. This could be solved by having a

larger test group, which might have a closer average than what we ended up

with. A third potential problem could stem from the amount of coffee grounds

used. It is possible that the one gram of coffee per pot could have been too much

for the plant. This could be fixed by using smaller amounts of coffee, where

effects still might be visible, but there is not so much coffee as to stem plant

growth.

This research provides more data points on the effects of coffee grounds

on plant growth. Overall, coffee seems to have potential as a fertilizer but does

not function as well purely on its own. To get used, it seems it needs to be added

with other nutrients to counteract some of its growth restricting components.

This knowledge could help to develop more effective coffee-based fertilizers,

that can counteract the restrictions that coffee provided and help balance it out

to help our plants grow. This could help us find better uses for the large amount

of coffee waste that is produced. This could be followed up by combining coffee

with other components to see if there could be an overall benefit to growth. We

could also test different amounts of coffee to see if using more grounds or fewer

grounds could allow for better growth. I would perform a similar experiment

but using more treatment groups with different amounts of coffee grounds to see

which one might help the best. I would then follow it up by using the coffee
ground amount that worked best, and adding different components to see which

ones might better benefit coffee growth.

Alifah, N., A. R. Hidayat. 2025. Utilization of coffee grounds waste as an

organic fertilizer to improve soil quality and plant productivity.

International Journal of Environment Quality 68:79-86

Hu, Y., J. Li, Y. Wu, D. Zhang, Z. Qui, R. Yang. 2024. Spent coffee grounds and

its derivatives as soil amendments – impact on soil health and plant

production. Agronomy 15:26

Jumar, J., R. A. Saptura, R. Wahdah, M. Elmi, Y.N. Sholeha. 2023. The potential

of coffee ground compost to enhance soil pH, growth, and production of

mustard greens in acid-dry land. IOP Conference Series: Earth and

Environmental Science 1266:012037