Me too, but if so much of a plant comes from the air not the soil, why do my plants grow better when I fertilize them?
Also, is there some optimum atmosphere in which plant should be kept in order to promote growth? That is, should they be living in some sort of nutritious fog, inside a greenhouse?
Great question - You should ask it on the TED site (free to Join) -
I'm guessing it makes the plant better at getting stuff out of the air?
Re:Opt atmosphere: I wouldn't have thought so... other than for plants that naturally grow near waterfalls/rain forests where the air's usually full of moisture
The issue may have pertained more to trees than plants in general. Is it possible trees take in CO2, make cellulose with the C and toss away the O2? There must be more to it than that... Maybe I will ask on the TED site.
But I can report I got the second question right (probably because I've done that very thing). And the third, because I've come across that example before, although this was the best explanation. I like to think I would have gotten the first question right, having thought a lot about carbon sequestration, but I can't know, having seen the answer here first. And I am mortified that I was so mistaken about the orbits of the planets: I'm blaming those textbooks!
Oh, and fertilizer: unlike carbon, it's actually very difficult for plants to take nitrogen from the air (called "fixing"), so only very few of them actually do it. So either you rotate your crops, periodically planting a crop that fixes nitrogen, or you apply fertilizer, where the nitrogen is in a form much more readily absorbed by the lazier plants.
And all those other nutrients: they form only trace amounts of the plant, but they are key in its various biological processes (the same is true for us).
Yes, but surely there's more to the trunk of a tree than carbon and a few scraps of whatever the tree can pull out of the air!
My question is what, besides those elements commonly found as gasses, does a plant pull out of the air? And then, is there any benefit to artificially placing those elements in the air around plants so their more readily available?
Cellulose is nothing but carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Just take some carbon dioxide and water and rub together. Of course, you probably need some heavy metals to catalyze the reaction.
Fair enough. There's a lengthy article in this month's Discover magazine about turning "Anything into Ethanol", with a focus on cellulose. I should have put two and two together.
I enjoyed that.
ReplyDeleteMe too, but if so much of a plant comes from the air not the soil, why do my plants grow better when I fertilize them?
ReplyDeleteAlso, is there some optimum atmosphere in which plant should be kept in order to promote growth? That is, should they be living in some sort of nutritious fog, inside a greenhouse?
There's a lot of research on growing plants in enriched atmospheres (carbon dioxide, mostly) - should be pretty easy to Google that.
ReplyDeleteGreat question - You should ask it on the TED site (free to Join) -
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing it makes the plant better at getting stuff out of the air?
Re:Opt atmosphere:
I wouldn't have thought so... other than for plants that naturally grow near waterfalls/rain forests where the air's usually full of moisture
The issue may have pertained more to trees than plants in general. Is it possible trees take in CO2, make cellulose with the C and toss away the O2? There must be more to it than that... Maybe I will ask on the TED site.
ReplyDeleteDidn't you study photosynthesis?! That is that very process!!!
ReplyDeleteNow I've seen the talk - excellent!
ReplyDeleteBut I can report I got the second question right (probably because I've done that very thing). And the third, because I've come across that example before, although this was the best explanation. I like to think I would have gotten the first question right, having thought a lot about carbon sequestration, but I can't know, having seen the answer here first. And I am mortified that I was so mistaken about the orbits of the planets: I'm blaming those textbooks!
Oh, and fertilizer: unlike carbon, it's actually very difficult for plants to take nitrogen from the air (called "fixing"), so only very few of them actually do it. So either you rotate your crops, periodically planting a crop that fixes nitrogen, or you apply fertilizer, where the nitrogen is in a form much more readily absorbed by the lazier plants.
And all those other nutrients: they form only trace amounts of the plant, but they are key in its various biological processes (the same is true for us).
Yes, but surely there's more to the trunk of a tree than carbon and a few scraps of whatever the tree can pull out of the air!
ReplyDeleteMy question is what, besides those elements commonly found as gasses, does a plant pull out of the air? And then, is there any benefit to artificially placing those elements in the air around plants so their more readily available?
Cellulose is nothing but carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Just take some carbon dioxide and water and rub together. Of course, you probably need some heavy metals to catalyze the reaction.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. There's a lengthy article in this month's Discover magazine about turning "Anything into Ethanol", with a focus on cellulose. I should have put two and two together.
ReplyDeleteA lot of plastics are just carbon, hydrogen and often oxygen. Though PVC obviously has a dash of chlorine too.
ReplyDelete