During 2018, USGS staff collected debris from the floors of 30 shipping containers located in Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu and destined for Wake Atoll as part of a study to understand biosecurity risks associated with overseas transport. The debris was sown in grow trays and monitored for plant germination for seven months in 2020-2021. The datasets for this project include: a list of plant species that germinated from the container debris, counts of seedlings for plant species in each grow tray, counts of monocots and dicots in each grow tray, and cover estimates of Pityrogramm calomelanos (silver fern).