#Environmental Stress

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Plant signal transduction mechanisms may be relatively rapid or extremely slow (Figure 15.1)

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[mokshalifestyleinternational]

PURE RASPBERRY SEED OIL

With an abundance of essential fatty acids such as oleic and linoleic acid, which may moisturize skin and trap moisture in. These essential fatty acids are identical to the skin's natural sebum, which is why raspberry seed oil is easily absorbed. Linoleic acid also reduces transepidermal water loss, or water loss from the first layers of skin caused by external causes. This helps the skin maintain moisture and hydration, keeping it nourished at all times. Time and environmental factors can stress the skin and promote premature aging. Using a moisturizing oil, such as Organic Raspberry Seed Oil, can help to prepare skin for such attacks while also promoting elegant aging. Raspberry seed oil contains antioxidants and vitamins, which combat and prevent oxidation.

[tenth-sentence]

All leaves, including those of evergreens, undergo senescence, whether in response to age-dependent factors, environmental cues, biotic stress, or abiotic stress.

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[anipgarden]

Things to Do that Aren't Related to Growing Plants

This is my second post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps! 

Some of us just don’t have much luck when it comes to growing plants. Some of us simply want to aim for other ways to help that don’t involve putting on gardening gloves. Maybe you've already got a garden, but you want to do more. No problem! There’s a couple of options you can look into that’ll help attract wildlife in your area without even having to bring out any shovels!

Provide a Water Source

Oftentimes when I see ‘add a water source’ in informational articles about improving your backyard for wildlife, it’s almost always followed by an image of a gorgeous backyard pond with a waterfall and rock lining that looks expensive to set up, difficult to maintain, and overall just… not feasible for me. Arguably, not feasible for a lot of people. And that’s okay! There’s still ways to add water in your garden for all kinds of creatures to enjoy!

There’s tons of ways to create watering stations for insects like bees and butterflies. A self refilling dog bowl can work wonders! Add some stones into the receiving tray for insects to land on or use to climb out, and you’ve got a wonderful drinking spot for all kinds of insects! You can also fill a saucer or other dish with small stones and fill it, though it’ll likely need refilling daily or even several times a day during hot times. 

I've seen people online use all kinds of things to make water features. Some go with terra-cotta pots, pebbles, and a cheap pump to get a small and simple fountain. Others use old tires, clay, and a hole in the ground to create an in-ground mini pond system. If all else fails, even a bucket or watertight box with a few plants in it can do the trick--though do be wary of mosquitoes if the water isn’t moving. In situations like these, a solar-powered fountain pump or bubbler are great for keeping the water moving while still making it a drinking option for wildlife (it not even more appealing for some)--and these items can be obtained fairly cheap online!

Bird baths are an option as well--a classic way to provide for birds in your area, they can be easy to find online or in a gardening store! The only downside is that a good, quality bird bath can be pricey up-front. However, a nice stone bird bath should last a long time, be easy to clean and refill, and be enjoyed by many birds! I’ve also seen tutorials on how to make your own with quickcrete! Bird baths will be a welcome sight to birds, as they provide a space for them to drink and bathe to regulate the oils in their feathers for flight and insulation. Putting a stone in the middle will also help insects to escape if they fall in, and provide a place to perch so they can get their own drink. You’ll want to change the water and clean the baths regularly--as often as once a week, if you can manage it.

If possible, it’s highly encouraged to fill and refill water features with rainwater instead of tap water. Tap water is often treated, so instead of using hoses or indoor kitchen water, collecting some rainwater is a great alternative. Collecting rainwater can be as simple as leaving cups, bins, or pots outside for awhile.

Butterflies and other creatures will also drink from mud puddles. If you can maintain an area of damp soil mixed with a small amount of salt or wood ash, this can be fantastic for them! Some plants also excel at storing water within their leaves and flowers (bromeliads come to mind), making them an excellent habitat for amphibians as well as a drinking spot for insects and birds.

Bird Feeders and Bird Houses

Some of the fancy, decorated bird feeders are expensive, but others can be pretty low-cost--I got my bird feeder from Lowe’s for around 10 dollars, and a big bag of birdseed was around another 10 dollars and has lasted several refills! If you don’t mind occasionally buying more birdseed, a single birdfeeder can do a lot to attract and support local birds! If you’re handy, have some spare wood, and have or can borrow some tools, you may even be able to find instructions online to make your own feeder. You may not even need wood to do so! Even hummingbird feeders, I’ve found, are quick to attract them, as long as you keep them stocked up on fresh sugar water in the spring and summer!

An important note with bird feeders is that you have to make sure you can clean them regularly. Otherwise, they may become a vector for disease, and we want to avoid causing harm whenever possible. Also keep an ear out and track if there’s known outbreaks of bird diseases in your area. If local birding societies and scientists are advising you take your birdfeeders down for awhile, by all means, do it!

Bird houses are naturally paired with bird feeders as biodiversity promoters for backyard spaces, and it makes sense. Having bird houses suited to birds in your area promotes them to breed, raise their young, disperse seeds, and generally engage in your surrounding environment. Setting them up takes careful selection or construction, preparation, and some patience, but sooner or later you might get some little homemakers! Keep in mind, you will need to clean your birdhouses at least once a year (if not once per brood) to make sure they’re ready and safe for birds year after year--you wouldn’t want to promote disease and parasites, after all. But they could be a valuable option for your landscape, whether you purchase one or construct your own! 

Again, do make sure you're putting up the right kind of boxes for the right kinds of birds. Bluebird boxes are some I see sold most commonly, but in my area I believe they're not even all that common--a nesting box for cardinals or chickadees would be far more likely to see success here! And some birds don't even nest in boxes--robins and some other birds are more likely to use a nesting shelf, instead! Research what birds live in your area, take note of any you see around already, and pick a few target species to make homes for!

Solitary Bee Houses

A bee house or bee hotel is a fantastic way to support the solitary bees in your area! For a few dollars and some annual cleaning, you can buy a solitary bee house from most big box nurseries. Alternatively, you can make one at home, with an array of materials you may already have lying around! You can even make them so that they’ll benefit all kinds of insects, and not necessarily just bees.

Though you don’t even necessarily have to break out the hammer and nails, buy a ton of bricks, or borrow a staple gun. Making homes for tunneling bees can be as simple as drilling holes in a log and erecting it, or drilling holes in stumps and dead trees on your property. You might even attract some woodpeckers by doing this!

Providing Nesting Area

There are tons of different kinds of bees, and they all make different kinds of homes for themselves. Not all of them make big cavity hives like honey bees, or will utilize a solitary bee house. Bumblebees live in social hives underground, particularly in abandoned holes made by rodents--some others nest in abandoned bird nests, or cavities like hollow logs, spaces between rocks, compost piles, or unoccupied birdhouses. Borer, Ground, and Miner bees dig into bare, dry soil to create their nests. Sparsely-vegetated patches of soil in well-drained areas are great places to find them making their nests, so providing a similar habitat somewhere in the garden can encourage them to come! I do talk later in this document about mulching bare soil in a garden--however, leaving soil in sunny areas and south-facing slopes bare provides optimal ground nesting habitat. Some species prefer to nest at the base of plants, or loose sandy soil, or smooth-packed and flat bare ground. They’ve also been known to take advantage of soil piles, knocked over tree roots, wheel ruts in farm roads, baseball diamonds and golf course sand traps. You can create nesting ground by digging ditches or creating nesting mounds in well-drained, open, sunny areas with sandy or silty soil. However, artificially constructed ground nests may only have limited success. 

Providing Alternative Pollinator Foods

Nectar and pollen aren’t the only foods sought out by some pollinators! Some species of butterflies are known to flock to overripe fruit or honey water, so setting these out can be an excellent way to provide food to wildlife. You may want to be cautious about how you set these out, otherwise it can help other wildlife, like ants or raccoons. Butterflies may also drop by to visit a sponge in a dish of lightly salted water. 

Bat Houses and Boxes

Big or small, whether they support five bats or five hundred, making bat boxes and supporting local bats is a great way to boost biodiversity! Not only will they eat mosquitoes and other pest species, but you may also be able to use the guano (bat droppings) as fertilizer! Do be careful if you choose to do that though--I’ve never had the opportunity to, so do some research into how strong it is and use it accordingly.

Provide Passageway Points

If you want your area to be more accessible for creatures that can’t fly or climb fences, allowing or creating access points can be an excellent way to give them a way in and out. Holes in the bottom of walls or fences can be sheltered with plants to allow animals through. 

In a somewhat similar manner, if you’re adding a water fixture, it’s important to provide animals a way to get into and out of the pond--no way in, and they can’t use the water. No way out, and they may drown. Creating a naturalistic ramp out of wood beams or sticks, or stepped platforms out of bricks, stones, or logs can do the trick. 

Get or Keep Logs and Brush Piles

I’ve already mentioned logs a good handful of times so far in this post. To be used as access ramps, or as nesting areas for solitary bees. But they have value as much more than that! Logs on the ground provide shelter for all kinds of animals, especially depending on size--anything from mice, reptiles, and amphibians to things like turkey vultures and bears will use fallen logs as shelter. Inside of a decaying log, there’s a lot of humidity, so amphibians are big fans of them--meanwhile, the upper sides of them can be used as sunning platforms by things like lizards. Other animals can also use the insides of logs as nest sites and hiding places from predators too big to fit inside. Fungi, spiders, beetles, termites, ants, grubs, worms, snails, slugs, and likely much more can be found inside rotting logs, using the rotting wood as food sources or nesting places. They can then provide food for mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. They can also be regarded as a landmark or territory marker as wildlife get more familiar with your space.

So how do you get logs for cheap? Try Chip Drop! I talk about them more in a future post, but you can mark saying that you’d like logs in your drop, so they’ll give you any they have! In fact, you may even get a drop faster if you're willing to accept some logs. You may also be able to approach arborists you see working in your area and ask for logs. There may also be local online listings for people selling logs for cheap, or just trying to get rid of them. If there’s land development going on near you, you may be able to snag logs from trees they cut down to make space. Do keep in mind, you don’t need to have huge gigantic logs laying around your property to make an impact--even small logs can help a lot.

If possible, creating and leaving brush piles on the edge of your property can be a great boost to biodiversity--even if you may not see the wildlife using it. They’ll provide shelter from weather and predators, and lower portions are cool and shady for creatures to avoid the hot sun. The upper layers can be used as perch sites and nest sites for song birds, while lower layers are resting sites for amphibians and reptiles, and escape sites for many mammals. As the material decays, they also attract insects, and as such they’ll attract insect-eating animals too. As more small animals find refuse in your brush pile, their predators will be attracted to them as well. Owls, hawks, foxes, and coyotes are known to visit brush piles to hunt. Making a brush pile can be as simple as piling branches and leaves into a mound, as big or as small as you want. You can even use tree stumps or old fence posts near the base, and keep stacking on plant trimmings and fallen branches. Do note that you don’t want to do this near anything like a fire pit.

Don't forget, with all of these, your mileage may vary for any variation of reasons, so don't worry if you can't take all of even any of these actions! Even just talking about them with other people may inspire someone else to put out a bat box, or leave a few logs out for wildlife!

That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to get seeds and plants as cheaply as possible. For now, I hope this advice helps! Feel free to reply with any questions, success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Jericho's turn at the torment playground

[sensitiveheartless]

Hullo!! Just wanted to give a belated thank you for all the well wishes, I really appreciate them all :'D I definitely seem to be on the mend! I've been having an...interesting health time this year, but I'm working on it. I've started getting more sleep, at least, which is helping — sleep deprivation makes my digestive issues way, way worse. And also makes it more likely that I'll get sick in general aksjdfksjdf

But yeah, anyway! With luck I will be able to get more things done this week, as long as I can avoid making my body rebel against me again!

[koifrog]

I’m approaching 27 which means that we are now in this unexpected period of life where we need to replace all of our “good enough for now” things that we got super cheap (or free from family) when we first started living on our own. I am realizing that it is VERY difficult to get rid of things, not just from an emotional attachment standpoint but also:

“Well it technically DOES still work even if it’s unpleasant and falling apart” (especially applicable to ugly/uncomfortable furniture)

“We don’t have to get rid of it, we can always repair it” (it is literally broken and falling apart)

“Wouldn’t it be Bad and Consumeristic to just throw something away that isn’t actually broken just because I want a new one?” (this one plagues me)

“Getting a New Thing would be way too expensive” (hasn’t even checked the price of a replacement, I absolutely can afford it but it would cost more than $50)

Even when I’ve fought through those arguments (which is very hard to do considering these are things I learned while growing up during the 2008 recession and struggling financially due to severe illness and death in the family when I was young) and come out the other side determined to actually replace something, a new issue arises. “How am I going to get rid of the old thing?”

“I can’t donate this because it’s broken or stained”

“I want to sell this but this requires a lot of energy that I don’t have (photographing the item, pricing the item, posting an ad for the item, sorting through offers for the item, arranging pickup for the item, possibly even shipping the item)”

“I want to throw this away but it’s too large to put in the garbage so it must go on the curb and I don’t know the protocol for that”

“I want to throw this away but it’s too large to put in the garbage and too broken to give away so it must go to the dump and I don’t have a vehicle I can use to take this there so I will need to reach out to family for help”

“I want to throw this away but I’m not sure how to do so in an Environmentally Friendly way”

This sort of situation is a nightmare for my mentally ill mind, and it results in me simply giving up and putting up with keeping the shitty item I know I want to replace and repeating the same excuses to myself to justify it enough that I don’t break down in frustrated tears every time I look at the thing I’ve been wanting to get rid of for months.

I’m sick of it though. I am tired of having to put up with being stuck with something I don’t like just because it’s not “bad enough” to justify going through the stress of removing from my life. I am tired of living with these things that I want to get rid of taking up the space I want to give to something new that I do love that I picked out myself on purpose. I am tired of my own happiness not being a good enough reason to justify doing something difficult or inconvenient. I am approaching 30. I don’t want to live the next decade of my life like I’ve lived the first two, just dealing with what’s been given to me and not saying no, incapable of removing things I don’t like to make space for things I do.

[poetriarchy]

i wanna shake every single person on this website by the shoulders and scream IT'S AN EL NIÑO YEAR!!!!!!!!! IT'S AN EL NIÑO YEAR!!!!!!!! IT'S AN EL NIÑO YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[whats-in-a-sentence]

The "stress matrix" shown in Figure 24.7 summarizes different combinations of environmental conditions that could have a significant impact on agricultural production.

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[mokshalifestyleinternational]

PURE POMEGRANATE OIL

It contains a range of Omega 6 essential fatty acids, including linoleic, palmitic, and oleic acid, each with a unique role. Palmitic and oleic acids are natural emollients that nourish the skin. While linoleic acid aids in the retention of moisture inside skin tissues, keeping skin moisturized throughout the day. Aging is an unavoidable natural process, however, environmental stresses such as pollution and UV radiation accelerate the process and induce premature aging. Organic Pomegranate Oil can help delay these effects and promote a more elegant skin aging process. It contains Vitamin A, which tightens skin and promotes regeneration, resulting in fewer fine lines and wrinkles. It is also rich in antioxidants such as vitamin C and polyphenols.

[vexangle]

ok but actually as someone whos studying to work in architecture, kaveh is such a painful reflection to examine. i put off looking at his story/voicelines/etc. for so long because i knew it was gonna hit hard and it did.

it's honestly kind of frustrating to see his struggles get boiled down to "artist struggles." there are elements of his character that are relatable to all sorts of creatives. perfectionism is a plague. but hearing things like "just stop being a perfectionist" gets grating when the people saying it arent in a position where their mistakes can cost people's lives and safety.

there is no way for me to fuck up a painting badly enough that the finished product kills someone. "what if my skills arent good enough" in this line of work isnt just about artistic value and worth. its also about the material harm you can cause.

think of the withering during the first round of constructing the palace of alcazarzaray. there was no way for kaveh to predict something like that far enough ahead of time. he shouldn't fault himself for it, but this doesnt change that as the architect it is very much still his responsibility to deal with.

[tenth-sentence]

For example, in order to cope with a transient environmental stress, a plant may need to briefly produce specific enzymes.

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[cloudii-skiies]

update on my finals (turns out i had 4 today):

science - don't even talk to me, i literally started crying because i ran out of time and i didn't remember half the questions (why is my teacher giving us an in-class final??? the regents is enough. also my teacher said that we'll have time to finish part 1 tomorrow and thursday so it made me feel better)

english - pretty good, only 10 multiple choice but tomorrow i have to do the essay 💔 i have a picture of the prompt though, so i'll try and start it at home.

spanish - easiest listening ever, even easier than last year's listening for the FLACS

social studies - today was essay day, it was pretty easy since i was prepared, but tomorrow is multiple choice 💔

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[ofcowardiceandkings]

the heirarchy of good habits for feeding yourself when you have brainfuck doesnt need to be all at once at all and in fact is probably best not to do it that way

start by making sure youre getting enough calories at regular intervals to fuel your body

then move forward to making sure youre getting enough fruit n vegetables in whatever form you can

then you can start to worry about nitty gritty things like salt intake or cutting out some sugars or saturated fats or more protein or whatever you need to do for your health

its WAY more important to be getting all the right stuff first than be cutting things out with nowhere to go