The diameter of the stem of a wheat plant is an important trait because of its relationship to breakage of the stem, which interferes with harvesting the crop. An agronomist measured stem diameter in eight plants of the Tetrastichon cultivar of soft red winter wheat. All observations were made 3 weeks after flowering of the plant. The stem diameters (mm) were as follows 50:
2.3 2.6 2.4 2.2 2.3 2.5 1.9 2.0
The mean of these data is 2.275 and the standard deviation is 0.238.
(a) Calculate the standard error of the mean.
(b) Construct a 95% confidence interval for the population mean.
(c) Define in words the population mean that you estimated in part (b).