He also has a YouTube channel. I first saw him speak at SF Nerd Nite which is a speaker series in San Francisco. He’s very entertaining and basically a self taught botanist.
His youtube channel is great! I love his Bay Area hikes and plant explanations.
There's a nice article about him, he is a full-time train engineer who drives train shipments all around the west coast and while he was traveling he got curious about all the plants he would see from the train so he started going to the libraries on his breaks from work to learn about plants.
For those in the Bay Area he has a pretty hilarious video of him shopping at Berkeley Bowl too, shredding junk like the homeopathic bs but praising their produce selection. Bonus video of him analyzing the sad trees in the Emeryville Target parking lot.
So, the percentage of the forest that are spruce has increased dramatically in recent years? Seems unlikely that they bothered planting their own forests.
Not that you’re wrong, but I find it darkly amusing that rather than than cut back on all the crazy things we’re doing, it would make sense to instead bio engineer a bunch of plant life to deal instead.
What is the proposed mechanism for implementing a cut back? A global population with 8 billion people and 1950s carbon emissions implies an average living standard somewhere in the realm of the 1900s. Are you volunteering to move back to the horse and buggy?
Bear in mind that the industrialized world of 1950 was only inhabited by a small portion of the global population at most a billion people.
The only path forward is technological innovation to reduce or remove carbon emissions.
The thing is actually stopping the warming involves:
1. Cutting emissions to zero. Not cutting back, zero
2. Extracting a chunk of co2 from
the atmosphere and sequestering it
Cutting back just means things get worse less quickly. They still get worse.
To solve the issue we should be building nuclear among other things but for whatever reason the green movement has opposed the solution for decades. Even shutting down nuclear to use more coal. Renewables are great but nothing currently is replacing baseload co2 producing fuels, which are still growing globally. And which will still grow unless we make an economically feasible baseload alternative.
That's a good practice anyway. Focusing on the capability to flexibly adapt our agriculture ensures long-term survivability. Focusing on hyper-efficient extraction that assumes a steady state gives a high-output but incredibly fragile agricultural industry. One black swan event, like a few volcanic eruptions, and we're all toast - and of course, the climate is constantly shifting even in the absence of such events and human inputs, just more slowly.
Plants build three-carbon sugars during photosynthesis by fixing a CO2 molecule onto a two-carbon chain with an enzyme called RuBisCO. In a typical "C3" plant, this happens relatively directly. But RuBisCO can screw up and fix an O2 molecule instead, and the erroneous result costs the plant energy to repair.
As the temperature rises, so does the error rate. At a high-enough temperature, the plant loses energy overall, which it can't survive long term.
C4 plants separate this process into two steps spatially. They build a four-carbon molecule in a much less error-prone way, then move this to a part of the cell where it's broken down into CO2. RuBisCO is again used to build the three-carbon sugars, but because the relative concentration of CO2 to O2 is so high, the error rate is low. There's some additional overhead to this process, but it pays off in warm climates.
Incidentally, there's another warm-climate metabolism: CAM (crassulacean acid metabolism). CAM works by temporally separating parts of the process. At night, they open their stomata, and use CO2 to build an acid. During the day, they close their stomata, cleave CO2 off of the acid to increase the concentration, and let RuBisCO its thing.
I believe RuBisCO is the most common enzyme on Earth by weight. I find it striking that Mother Nature has had to find all these hacks to get around its shortcomings, but hasn't found a way to simply fix the enzyme so it doesn't make so many errors.
C4 is more efficient than C3 photosynthesis and allows plants both to produce more energy and to do so with less water which is an adaptation for hotter, drier climates.
You can, if you keep them cool with shade and water if it's not excessively humid.
I practice zone denial with a shade house and have things like rhubarb, cilantro and lettuce growing right now. It's been over 100F many days this summer and these would not make it outside. I also have many varieties of tomatoes and pretty sure I'm the only one the region who does because they would not set fruit outside in these temperatures.
If it's a dry climate and you have water and shade, you can turn it into a moderate or cool climate.
Well ok, if you modify the environment to have a different climate then you can grow things that grow in that modified climate...
I don't know why the post title doesn't include the "Why" prefix from the source. Which is really a botany explanation rather than simple horticultural complaint.
I started a tomato patch in MA early on this season but they hardly grew and are just now delivering fruit. Are they negatively impacted by high temperatures? This is the first time I have a plot in full sun, and all instructions point to tomatos doing well in full sun, but I wonder if the sun was a bit too full this season :-D
1) did you start them indoors or buy seedlings? Getting a late start could delay things.
2) did you water them enough?
3) did you have good holes for them? Tomatoes do well if they can root deeply - giving them a 2-3' deep hole filled with good soil and compost helps.
4) cages: indeterminate tomatoes can grow huge, So give them a cage with plenty of space - the crap little cages you get at Home Depot do not suffice. If they were determinant, this does not apply.
Tomatoes do well in full sun but need quite a bit of water if it's dry. And possibly some calcium - we compost our egg shells as one source.
It's kind of a fine line with tomatoes because they really really do not like cool nights nor cool soil.
But if it's too hot they will not set fruit. You get blooms but they just drop.
Some tomatoes are more adapted to cool and others to heat. I have found Roma and cherry tomatoes set in hotter temperatures (generally) than many others.
Can you tell us a bit more about your greenhouse/hoop house? I’m in the CO front range - so very dry, cool nights, but quite hot in the sun. Our patio is getting re-done and I’m thinking about how I might rebuild our planters to better support growing tomatoes.
I'm several hundred miles due south of you in SE New Mexico, also right along the rocky front range, so similar climate with intense sun and day/night temp swings, although we are much warmer obviously.
The frame of the shade house in the video is cattle panels and the cover is called "aluminet". The cattle panels are hooped and tied to a wooden frame with posts sunk in the ground. It started as a simple 10'x20' structure but I kept adding rooms and and other portions are not hoop type. Someone gave me a 10x10 frame that is very tall from an old "greenhouse" so I tacked that on. The doors are used screen doors also covered with aluminet. It's been an ongoing process over years. But it hasn't been expensive, I would say under $1000 for the entire structure including redoing the cover once. The cover is secured with a zillion zip ties and has nylon straps to keep it from flapping (we get extreme winds).
There is a lot more I could say on the subject but hopefully that gets you some things to look into.
I take the zone denial the other way as well and have tropical plants like banana, mango, dragon fruit, pineapple etc. that I protect in the winter from snow and freezing temperatures.
As someone very naive on this topic, can you elaborate on where he pushed boundaries? I follow his YT channel and he obviously pushes boundaries from an activist perspective, and I'm a fan[0], but I'm not able to judge his scientific credentials.
[0] (love that one video where he shows how to get away with replacing poorly chosen non-native plants in public parks that will inevitably die out within a few years with native species that will thrive; basically, put on a yellow vest and dress like a gardener and nobody will bother you)
Wouldn't a hydroponic setup help the author with this?
Dumb question, but is it difficult to setup a temperature and humidity controlled box or room where you could stow away the plants at night? A possibly dumber question, why do hydroponics always seem to involve indoor/UV lighting? Why are there no container-sized setups that you can place outdoors, but the climate and sun-light is controlled, and it's all powered by solar energy?
(sorry for all the dumb questions, i don't know anything about this topic)
All of these things are possible, but the cost difference between “put the plant in the dirt” and “put the plant in a specially constructed climate and humidity controlled box” are why large-scale hydroponics are only really used for high profit margin crops for which there’s a good reason not to just plant them outside.
You can do hydroponics outside, but it will still be warm at night. And with hydroponics, you need to prevent the water from getting too warm -- the roots will rot. So you might have trouble during the day, too.
[This guy][1] does a bunch of hydroponics and hydroponics adjacent projects outdoors.
> why do hydroponics always seem to involve indoor/UV lighting?
Hydroponics and artificial lighting increase density (no/less volume wasted by dirt, and can stack plant beds on top of each other). UV lighting is more power-efficient artificial lighting, so it's the next logical step.
And if you grow plants indoor somewhat densely, they'll leave your apartment in constant semi-darkness if you rely on sunlight. I have this issue with my basil and cherry tomatoes, for example.
This isn’t true. You can grow - it’s just the seasons are different or offset. In the warmer climates you actually have a longer growing season than say New England. Your local extension office can explain.
For example, here is the UFIFAS which is very good
While you can grow them in, lets say, Houston, they're not easy to grow. They get infections at the drop of a hat, and if you so much as turn around, some sort of insect will munch through them. They don't yield much fruit, and the fruits they do yield generally leave something to be desired in the flavor department.
This is his point. The plants don't have much energy to fend off infections or predators, and they don't have much less energy to put into their fruit.
If you put a tomato plant in a more suitable climate, the things are nearly weeds. You put them in a bucket, make sure they get enough water, and you a few months later you have sweet, juicy, flavorful fruit with basically zero effort.
While we've bred cultivars that can be grown in places like Houston or Florida, the plants don't particularly like it.
Apparently I have cool climate plants: apple, avocado, lavender those are germinated from seeds and blackberry, and fig from cuttings also living in a hot and humid climate. Definitely they can grow here, but can they be farmed? Of course not without expensive climate controls
Blackberry and it's variants like dewberry are very common in the south and do fine in the high heat and humidity. It's almost impossible to kill. I have 4 different varieties growing wild and in planters at my house.
I also have many apple trees and they do struggle - even the native varieties. I think that's mainly due to fungus, aphids, and the poor soil though.
From my recent experience, blackberry can be quickly eliminated with a small amount of triclopyr applied to a fresh cut with a brush. It gets to the root without harming anything around.
Are you talking about the southern US? How can there be native apple varieties? I thought they were all originally from around central Asia and a quick look on wikipedia confirms this
Readit News
There's a nice article about him, he is a full-time train engineer who drives train shipments all around the west coast and while he was traveling he got curious about all the plants he would see from the train so he started going to the libraries on his breaks from work to learn about plants.
https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/botany-joe...
Interesting chilean high-elevation rare carrot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdodZcrFIPM&t=2s
old growth redwoods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbma869jMQY&t=4s
Supposedly due to warmer summers.
And new planatation replace spruce by larch or leaf trees.
Luckily they don't seem to affect pine trees, but they have their own climate expectations.
https://c4rice.com/the-science/engineering-photosynthesis-wh...
Bear in mind that the industrialized world of 1950 was only inhabited by a small portion of the global population at most a billion people.
The only path forward is technological innovation to reduce or remove carbon emissions.
1. Cutting emissions to zero. Not cutting back, zero
2. Extracting a chunk of co2 from the atmosphere and sequestering it
Cutting back just means things get worse less quickly. They still get worse.
To solve the issue we should be building nuclear among other things but for whatever reason the green movement has opposed the solution for decades. Even shutting down nuclear to use more coal. Renewables are great but nothing currently is replacing baseload co2 producing fuels, which are still growing globally. And which will still grow unless we make an economically feasible baseload alternative.
How would you get grant money for that?
As the temperature rises, so does the error rate. At a high-enough temperature, the plant loses energy overall, which it can't survive long term.
C4 plants separate this process into two steps spatially. They build a four-carbon molecule in a much less error-prone way, then move this to a part of the cell where it's broken down into CO2. RuBisCO is again used to build the three-carbon sugars, but because the relative concentration of CO2 to O2 is so high, the error rate is low. There's some additional overhead to this process, but it pays off in warm climates.
Incidentally, there's another warm-climate metabolism: CAM (crassulacean acid metabolism). CAM works by temporally separating parts of the process. At night, they open their stomata, and use CO2 to build an acid. During the day, they close their stomata, cleave CO2 off of the acid to increase the concentration, and let RuBisCO its thing.
I believe RuBisCO is the most common enzyme on Earth by weight. I find it striking that Mother Nature has had to find all these hacks to get around its shortcomings, but hasn't found a way to simply fix the enzyme so it doesn't make so many errors.
I practice zone denial with a shade house and have things like rhubarb, cilantro and lettuce growing right now. It's been over 100F many days this summer and these would not make it outside. I also have many varieties of tomatoes and pretty sure I'm the only one the region who does because they would not set fruit outside in these temperatures.
If it's a dry climate and you have water and shade, you can turn it into a moderate or cool climate.
My tomatoes a week ago or so https://youtube.com/shorts/wRHiiCCICmc?feature=share
I don't know why the post title doesn't include the "Why" prefix from the source. Which is really a botany explanation rather than simple horticultural complaint.
2) did you water them enough?
3) did you have good holes for them? Tomatoes do well if they can root deeply - giving them a 2-3' deep hole filled with good soil and compost helps.
4) cages: indeterminate tomatoes can grow huge, So give them a cage with plenty of space - the crap little cages you get at Home Depot do not suffice. If they were determinant, this does not apply.
Tomatoes do well in full sun but need quite a bit of water if it's dry. And possibly some calcium - we compost our egg shells as one source.
But if it's too hot they will not set fruit. You get blooms but they just drop.
Some tomatoes are more adapted to cool and others to heat. I have found Roma and cherry tomatoes set in hotter temperatures (generally) than many others.
I'm several hundred miles due south of you in SE New Mexico, also right along the rocky front range, so similar climate with intense sun and day/night temp swings, although we are much warmer obviously.
The frame of the shade house in the video is cattle panels and the cover is called "aluminet". The cattle panels are hooped and tied to a wooden frame with posts sunk in the ground. It started as a simple 10'x20' structure but I kept adding rooms and and other portions are not hoop type. Someone gave me a 10x10 frame that is very tall from an old "greenhouse" so I tacked that on. The doors are used screen doors also covered with aluminet. It's been an ongoing process over years. But it hasn't been expensive, I would say under $1000 for the entire structure including redoing the cover once. The cover is secured with a zillion zip ties and has nylon straps to keep it from flapping (we get extreme winds).
There is a lot more I could say on the subject but hopefully that gets you some things to look into.
I take the zone denial the other way as well and have tropical plants like banana, mango, dragon fruit, pineapple etc. that I protect in the winter from snow and freezing temperatures.
[0] (love that one video where he shows how to get away with replacing poorly chosen non-native plants in public parks that will inevitably die out within a few years with native species that will thrive; basically, put on a yellow vest and dress like a gardener and nobody will bother you)
Dumb question, but is it difficult to setup a temperature and humidity controlled box or room where you could stow away the plants at night? A possibly dumber question, why do hydroponics always seem to involve indoor/UV lighting? Why are there no container-sized setups that you can place outdoors, but the climate and sun-light is controlled, and it's all powered by solar energy?
(sorry for all the dumb questions, i don't know anything about this topic)
[This guy][1] does a bunch of hydroponics and hydroponics adjacent projects outdoors.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/@Hoocho
Hydroponics and artificial lighting increase density (no/less volume wasted by dirt, and can stack plant beds on top of each other). UV lighting is more power-efficient artificial lighting, so it's the next logical step.
And if you grow plants indoor somewhat densely, they'll leave your apartment in constant semi-darkness if you rely on sunlight. I have this issue with my basil and cherry tomatoes, for example.
I guess in this case it would have to be greenhouse with good AC?
For example, here is the UFIFAS which is very good
https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/media/sfylifasufledu/orange/hort-r...
While you can grow them in, lets say, Houston, they're not easy to grow. They get infections at the drop of a hat, and if you so much as turn around, some sort of insect will munch through them. They don't yield much fruit, and the fruits they do yield generally leave something to be desired in the flavor department.
This is his point. The plants don't have much energy to fend off infections or predators, and they don't have much less energy to put into their fruit.
If you put a tomato plant in a more suitable climate, the things are nearly weeds. You put them in a bucket, make sure they get enough water, and you a few months later you have sweet, juicy, flavorful fruit with basically zero effort.
While we've bred cultivars that can be grown in places like Houston or Florida, the plants don't particularly like it.
He's talking about growing tomatoes all the way through the article. Nothing but talking about how tomatoes grow
They grow like weeds around here. The tomatoes the article cites don't grow as well, but are still perfectly farmable.
Besides, people have been adapting species for other climates for millennia. I don't think it makes sense to talk about entire species that way.
I also have many apple trees and they do struggle - even the native varieties. I think that's mainly due to fungus, aphids, and the poor soil though.
No idea about avocado.
I sowed apple seeds from the supermarket apples (Covid time) so probably that’s why they adapted well. They definitely love the sun and heat.