This has been an exciting week for me. On Monday we started cleaning off 72 rootballs of various tree species that had been planted 5 years ago for a study. These trees had been planted in containers and become potbound at the nursery from which we received them. We treated them in one of three ways. Either we did nothing (in other words we just dropped the pot bound tree in a hole), we used the standard methods that Universities recommend for slicing potbound roots (Four deep slits down the sides and a deeply cut X across the bottom), or we cut off all of the circling roots by cutting the pot bound root system into a box shape.… Continue reading this article “Harvesting an Experiment”
Author: jeffgillman003
Genetic Engineering, Veal, and Rennin
Today I thought I’d go just a little off topic. Lots of people out there are really upset about the idea of putting genes into plants, like putting genes for Round-Up resistance into soybeans, or genes for caterpillar resistance into corn. And, I do agree, this is a pretty powerful technology that needs to be used carefully – probably more carefully than it’s being used right now with plants.
But the funny thing is, one of the places where transgenic creatures really dominate the market is in a place that is almost never considered.… Continue reading this article “Genetic Engineering, Veal, and Rennin”
Are Pretty Flowers Useful?
Yesterday I had the opportunity to listen to Marla Spivak, a very highly regarded bee scientist, talk about how bees defend themselves from disease. Very interesting stuff. I took a lot of information away from the talk, two bits of which I want to share with you.
The first is a vocabulary word — propolis – go ahead, google it (I don’t think too much inappropriate stuff will pop up) – it’s an antimicrobial “ointment” which bees create from stuff like the resins on tree buds.… Continue reading this article “Are Pretty Flowers Useful?”
How to get the information out?
Over the last two weeks I’ve been dwelling on the information that people get about gardening from various sources. I’m not talking about really serious gardeners – I’m talking about the guy down the block who might grow six tomatoes, two cucumbers, and a head of lettuce. He’s got 6 trees on his property and he keeps his lawn nice, but not immaculate, by mowing weekly and fertilizing and applying herbicides once a year. Where is this guy getting his gardening information? … Continue reading this article “How to get the information out?”
Bordeaux Mix
One of my favorite stories about pesticides is the story of Bordeaux mix. It’s a story of France in the 1800s (so it must be pretty romantic, right?) and how they were suffering from a shortage of grapes. Don’t feel sorry for them — it was really their own doing. Over the course of the 19th century grape vines were brought from the United States to test their merits against European grapes. It was quickly discovered that, for the most part, American grapes were not the equal of European grapes for winemaking. … Continue reading this article “Bordeaux Mix”
Building a House of Straw — With Brix!
Before I get into the meat of this issue I wanted to mention that, a couple of weeks ago, Purdue came out with a statement which basically supported a post that I had previously written – one where I stated that there’s not a lot of good evidence that using Roundup leads to sudden death syndrome in soybeans. Yeah me! Well, not really – that’s not the way science works. While it is nice that other scientists agree with my conclusion, that doesn’t mean that Round-up isn’t affecting soybeans – it just means that there’s no evidence of it right now.… Continue reading this article “Building a House of Straw — With Brix!”
Breaking up Tree Week with an Important Announcement! (Or Not — depending on how you feel about shameless plugs)
OK, here it is, my one and only shameless plug — because my publisher says: Hey! You need to at least let people know that the book exists!
So — I’m excited to say that my next book, How The Government Got In Your Backyard, which I co-wrote with my good friend (and old college roommate) Eric Heberlig, who is an Associate Professor of Political Science at UNC Charlotte, is finally out.
In case it isn’t immediately obvious, I love to write.… Continue reading this article “Breaking up Tree Week with an Important Announcement! (Or Not — depending on how you feel about shameless plugs)”
Guano
One of the best organic fertilizers out there – at least in terms of how plants respond to it — is bat guano. As most of you probably already know, bat guano is made of bat droppings. What you probably don’t realize is that bat droppings need to be aged for a while in an arid environment before they become guano. Caves provide the perfect environment for this to occur, and so that is where most bat guano comes from.… Continue reading this article “Guano”
Sudden Death Syndrome in Soy — Biggest Threat to the Entire Food Chain?
This past week we received an interesting e-mail about something called “sudden death syndrome” which we were asked to blog about. Here’s the article we were sent. We don’t always take requests, but we thought that this was an interesting one, so we decided to write a little post about it. Sudden death syndrome is basically a fungal disease which affects the roots of soybeans. Recently there has been some press out there about how Round-up ready soybeans are particularly susceptible to this disease and that the spraying of roundup itself can lead to favorable environments for it.… Continue reading this article “Sudden Death Syndrome in Soy — Biggest Threat to the Entire Food Chain?”
An Early Valentine’s Story
In honor of Valentine’s day I have a story about love and betrayal to share….OK, maybe not….perhaps something more along the lines of branches and ants. Same difference right?
There was once a tree that was much loved. It was planted in a cute little corner of a street next to a historic building and was well cared for by its owners. Its many limbs rose to the sky in a seething mass which made the tree look vigorous and robust…and those who planted the tree were very happy.… Continue reading this article “An Early Valentine’s Story”