#plantposting

[headspace-hotel]

So I'm absolutely not an expert on the subject, and this post is just a bunch of thoughts I've been turning over in my head a lot, but: on the subject of Industrial Agriculture, the Earth's carrying capacity, and agroforestry

Writings from people who propose policy changes to secure the future of Earth treat energy use by organisms in (what seems to me like) the most infuriatingly presumptive, simplistic terms and I don't know why or what's wrong or what I'm missing here.

Humans have to use some share of the solar energy that reaches Earth to continue existing.

The first problem is when writers appear to assume that our current use of solar energy via the agricultural system (we grow plants that turns the light into food.) already is maximally efficient.

The second problem is when writers see land as having one "use" that excludes all other uses, including by other organisms.

The way i see it, the thing is, we learned how to farm from natural environments. Plant communities and farms are doing the same thing, capturing energy from the Sun and creating biomass, right? The idea of farming is to make it so that as much as possible of that biomass is stuff that can be human food.

So instead of examining the most efficient crops or even the most efficient agricultural systems, I think we need to examine the most efficient natural ecosystems and how they do it.

What I'm saying is...in agricultural systems where a sunbeam can hit bare dirt instead of a leaf, that's inefficiency. In agricultural systems where the nutrients in dead plant matter are eroded away instead of building the soil, that's inefficiency. Industrial agriculture is hemorrhaging inefficiency. And it's not only that, it's that industrial agriculture causes topsoil to become degraded, which is basically gaining today's productivity by taking out a loan from the future.

I first started thinking about this with lawns: a big problem with monocultures is ultimately that they occupy a single niche.

In the wild, plant communities form layers of plants that occupy different niches in space. So in a forest you have your canopy, your understory, your forest floor with herbaceous plants, and you have mosses and epiphytes, and basically if any sunbeams aren't soaked up by the big guys in the canopy, they're likely to land on SOME leaf or other.

Monocultures like lawns are so damn hard to sustain because they're like a restaurant with one guy in it and 20 empty tables, and every table is loaded with delicious food. And right outside the restaurant is a whole crowd of hungry people.

Once the restaurant is at capacity and every table is full, people will stop coming in because there's no room. But as long as there's lots of room and lots of food, people will pour in!

So a sunny lawn has lots of food (sunlight) and lots of room (the soil and the air above the soil can fit a whole forest's worth of plant material). So nature is just bombing that space with aggressive weeds non-stop trying to fill those niches.

A monoculture corn field has a lot of the same problems. It could theoretically fit more plants, if those plants slotted into a niche that the corn didn't. Native Americans clear across the North American continent had the Three Sisters as part of their agricultural strategy—you've got corn, beans, and squash, and the squash fits the "understory" niche, and the corn provides a vertical support for the beans.

We dump so many herbicides on our monocultures. That's a symptom of inefficient use of the Sun, really. If the energy is going to plants we can't eat instead of plants we can, that's a major inefficiency.

But killing the weeds doesn't fully close up that inefficiency. It improves it, but ultimately, it's not like 100% of the energy the weeds would be using gets turned into food instead. It's just a hole, because the monoculture can't fulfill identical niches to the weeds.

The solution—the simple, brilliant solution that, to me, is starting to appear common throughout human agricultural history—is to eat the weeds too.

Dandelions are a common, aggressive weed. They're also an edible food crop.

In the USA, various species of Amaranth are our worst agricultural weeds. They were also the staple food crop that fed empires in Mesoamerica.

Purslane? Edible. Crabgrass? Edible.

A while back I noticed a correlation in the types of plants that don't form mycorrhizal associations. Pokeweed, purslane, amaranth—WEEDS. This makes perfect sense, because weeds are disaster species that pop up in disturbed soil, and disturbed soil isn't going to have much of a mycorrhizal network.

But, you know what else is non-mycorrhizal? Brassicas—ie the plant that humans bred into like 12 different vegetables including broccoli and brussels sprouts.

My hypothesis is that these guys were part of a Weed Recruitment Event wherein a common agricultural weed got domesticated into a secondary food crop. I bet the same thing happened with Amaranth. I bet—and this is my crazy theory here—I bet a lot of plants were domesticated not so much based on their use as food, but based on their willingness to grow in the agricultural fields that were being used for other crops.

So, Agroforestry.

Agroforestry has the potential for efficiency because it's closer to a more efficient and "complete" plant community.

People keep telling me, "Food forests are nowhere near as efficient as industrial agriculture, only industrial agriculture can feed the world!" and like. Sure, if you look at a forest, take stock of what things in it can be eaten, and tally up the calories as compared to a corn field (though the amount of edible stuff in a forest is way higher than you think).

But I think it's stupid to act like a Roundup-soaked corn field in Kansas amounts to the pinnacle of possible achievement in terms of agricultural productivity. It's a monoculture, it's hard to maintain and wasteful and leaves a lot of niches empty, and it's destroying the topsoil upon which we will depend for life in the future.

I think it's stupid to act like we can guess at what the most efficient possible food-producing system is. The people that came before us didn't spend thousands of years bioengineering near-inedible plants into staple food crops via just waiting for mutations to show up so that we, possessing actual ability to alter genes in a targeted way, could invent some kind of bullshit number for the carrying capacity of Earth based on the productive capability of a monoculture corn field

Like, do you ever think about how insane domestication is? it's like if Shakespeare's plays were written by generation after generation of people who gave a bunch of monkeys typewriters and spent every day of their lives combing through the output for something worth keeping.

"How do we feed the human race" is a PAINFULLY solvable problem. The real issue is greed, politics, and capitalism...

...lucky for us, plants don't know what those things are.

[twigsprout]

yuou wouldnt overwater me would you

[spineless-lobster]

Shawty had them apple blossom jeans

Roots with the fir (with the fir)

The whole shrub was looking at her

She hit the moor (she hit the moor)

Next thing you know

Shawty did grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow

[clorofolle]

They grow up so fast,,,

[forcedevil]

belladonna nightshade

[planet4546b]

plant updates kairi is growing a spike i have no idea why ^ i think i see new growth on ryley which is exciting because i was SOOOO sure he was dead, tifa has a BUNCH of new leaves even though she was really struggling for a while, and red is doing great for being so new!!! still no sign of mel being dead or alive but its so hard to tell cause she’s a cactus. adelaide continues to do beautifully well. my kairi propagation attempt seems to have failed but my attempt to bring my years dead haworthia back to life via propagation seems to be going ok..? no roots yet but the leaves are still green. if that one works im gonna be SHOCKED

[puddleluv]

i love just sitting in the sun and listening to music, it’s how i regain energy actually

[basil-from-omori]

tell me about ... red plants ....

I typed up an entire fuckinf essay and tumblr deleted it so here’s me trying to recreate it. i may cry. EDIT: did it again after I finished it. cool.

SO here are flowers that are red

- peonies. always a fave. my mom used to take lots of pictures of them. one of the few flowers off the top of my head I can think of that represent death. I don’t know much about their care, but I remember seeing them in Germany

- amaryllis…my fave my baby Girl. I love.. I love when it’s red it’s my FAVE ok. I explained them previously methinks

- bleeding hearts are interesting . look at That

NON flower red plants…

ok this is cool time

- copperhead copper plants are SO SO red and when I say red I mean oh my god that is certainly red. they like full to partial sun and aren’t picky about soil ph but like when it’s richer. and they should always be moist but not too moist. I want this so bad. it is beautiful and if I could have 1 new plant this would be it .

- tricolor stromanthe are also cool, they like bright indirect light and to be watered once a week or so. they are ez to keep alive but can be hard to keep pretty. anyways their coloring is a little weird, liek some leaves are red or some are only red on one side. weird ass.

this isn’t an exhaustive list at all, just my 5 fave red plants teehee. it’s now 4:39 am so im doing this half awake. aaaaaand post

[twigsprout]

youer just mad becayse im literally green and photosynthesizing.you just see me sitting here photosynthesizing and get so mad because im literally green and have chlorophyll. what am i doing im literally plant. you cant even tell that im plant i think?? just so uou know.this is waht i am im just the plant. and youer mad about it bc im green and in the dirt and have leafs? i sit here and photosynthesize and break up bones in the dirt and absorb nutrients and grow leafs. by the way. im plant and youre mad about plant??? i steal peoples bones and put them in the dirt and eat the nitrogen and photosynthesize by taking in carbon dioxide and air and water and combine it ! and make sugars :) and grow my leafs and spread roots. and im literally just plant

[gaylittleguys]

oh my god………. welcome baby Sunny to the world 💕🎉🥺

[clorofolle]

Lemons! From my little lemon tree

[forcedevil]

rafflesia

[1ore]

I just learned about genus Thismia, which is a funnie little group of plants that have traded photosynthesis for fungus parasitism. as one does. they look like they're running fungus OS on a sea squirt body.

Even more wild: Thismia americana. Most Thismias come from ~southeast Asia, but T. americana was found in a tiny remnant prairie in the city of Chicago in 1912-1916, and never again. construction has since destroyed the remnant prairie, though people have continued to hunt for it in adjacent prairie fragments.

It is considered functionally extinct now, and it's really such a bizarre little plant that some people have written it off as a hoax (though it would have taken an Exceptional grift to pull off, so, occam's razor and all that.)

... though just this year, another species of Thismia presumed extinct was rediscovered in Japan :) So if any of you chicago people want to go look for it, here is a guide. good luck!

[rotpunks]

wetlands this wetlands that why dont you get your dick wet

[gnapsplants]

My white fittonia also died for no particular reason

red one is fine tho

[basil-from-omori]

what r the most underrated/overrated plants and why do you think they should be used more/less

afaik baby’s breath get a lot of hate (this is funny rn bcuz of your username), but honestly they can look SUPER nice in little arrangements. like idk, I had a phase where i didnt like them when I was like 13 for some reason. they Like dry soil usually, but young ones like just moist soil. I just think they’re neat to throw into more delicate and cute arrangements. if you wanna lesser known plant, I’d say youtan polou which are more interesting than pretty. like….what is wrongwith u…little guy

This is babys breath:

anf then this is youtan poluo

but for OVERRATED PLANTS. I gotta say roses. their meanings dependent on colors is a neat concept, but meanings aside, they are so cliche and overdone I swear. this is a lame answer but still. also I don’t like sunflowers that much either, I think they’re overrated as well, but my bestie likes them so I forgive them. don’t need to show pictures of either lol