In environmental sciences, kinetics are essential to predict how long a pollutant will persist in soil. This can help in deciding how long one must wait to harvest after use of a herbicide on a crop. Or can help in assessing the impact of a hazardous waste site and how to clean it up. Their use may require that you understand what is limiting growth or metabolism in a particular situation. Frankly, you won't always know.
Growth rate is the change per unit time.
A. Growth frequently estimated by increase in cell counts. Doubling time can be calculated directly from graph. C. Generation time is time required for single cell to divide. Doubling time is same but usually refers to doubling of total population. Generation time varies with species and conditions.