The fruit plants in my garden do not bear fruit during their first summer. The fruits are picked for the next two years and then the plants become too woody and need to be pulled up. Occasionally some of the die over winter. The last five years I had fruit on the following number of plants: 0,11,20,27,19
Assuming no plants die this winter, what is the fewest that I could have next summer?
a) 0
b) 1
c) 7
d) 8
e) 19
mñhchn
To answer this question, let's analyze the information given. We are told that the fruit plants in the garden do not bear fruit during their first summer. From the given data, we see that the number of fruit-bearing plants for the last five years is as follows: 0, 11, 20, 27, 19.
This suggests that the number of fruit-bearing plants gradually increased over the years, indicating that some plants reach fruit-bearing age each year.
Now, we need to determine the fewest number of fruit-bearing plants we could have next summer, assuming no plants die this winter.
To find the answer, we need to look for the lowest number of fruit-bearing plants among the given years. From the data, we see that the fewest number of fruit-bearing plants in any of the previous years is 0.
This means that there was at least one year where no plants bore fruit. Since the plants do not bear fruit during their first summer, this implies that there were no new plants added in that particular year.
Therefore, if no plants die this winter, we can conclude that the fewest number of fruit-bearing plants next summer would be 0.
Hence, the answer is option a) 0.