0:00

What is up ? Plant people it's time

0:02

once more for the Plant Propology podcast , the

0:04

show where we dive into the lives and careers of some

0:06

very cool plant people to figure out why

0:08

they do what they do and what keeps them coming back for

0:10

more . I'm Vikram Maliga , your host and

0:12

your humble guide in this journey through the green sciences

0:15

and , as always , my dearest friends

0:17

. I am so excited , so very

0:19

excited , to be with you today . Y'all has been

0:21

far too long since

0:23

I've gotten to say that , like six months , maybe

0:26

more , I don't know . It's been quite a while

0:28

and I do owe you an explanation

0:30

for that . If you're a long-term listener

0:32

, if you're new , this is as good

0:34

a place to start as any . In as far as you know , I had never

0:37

took a break at all , so welcome

0:39

back from last week or today or

0:41

whenever you're listening . Y'all , this one's

0:43

going to be a little bit different . I'm trying some new

0:45

things with the podcast

0:47

as we sort of get back into

0:50

it and get it rolling again , and this officially

0:52

, officially is episode 100

0:55

. Episode 100 . Y'all , I started the show in

0:57

2019

1:00

in what ? November

1:02

of 2019 . I think the first real

1:04

episode came out 2019

1:07

, in November , and so it's been over four years

1:09

, like four years in change , and

1:12

it's just incredible

1:14

how many cool

1:16

people I have gotten to meet and

1:18

how much I've gotten to

1:21

do as a result of this show , and

1:23

I'm just so excited that we

1:25

get to do it again and that we're trying new stuff . If

1:28

you are listening on your normal

1:30

favorite podcast device , welcome

1:33

back . I'm glad to be in

1:35

your earphones or in your car speakers

1:37

once more , but now

1:39

we're going to add a video element to this

1:41

podcast , so you may be watching this on

1:43

YouTube . You may be watching clips

1:45

on social media of the show . I

1:48

don't know , I'm just trying some new stuff . We're going to see

1:50

how it goes . The reason I'm doing video now is we've

1:52

got some really , really , really , really

1:54

very exciting guests coming up . I'm

1:57

probably not going to video every episode . I'll do

1:59

quite a few of them , but I don't know

2:01

. I just wanted to try something new and I hope

2:03

that you will bear with me

2:05

as I figure it out . I don't really know

2:07

how to look at the camera for this . I do tons

2:10

of social media and stare at my phone

2:12

all the time , but this is a very

2:14

different ordeal . So if you're watching

2:16

online , if you're seeing my mouth

2:19

move . I'll get better at this . If you're listening

2:21

, feel free to disregard the last

2:23

30 or 40 seconds , but

2:25

I was trying to decide what to do for episode 100 . And

2:28

I've got some great guests coming up

2:30

. I've got , I think , five recordings scheduled in

2:32

the next three or four weeks , and actually more than

2:34

that . I'm really excited . But

2:37

one thing I've never gotten to do

2:39

a full episode about , because I

2:42

took a hiatus as it was sort

2:44

of all happening and coming out , is I

2:47

want to discuss my book , plants of the

2:49

Rescue . That came out in

2:51

July of 2023 . So

2:53

, as you listen to this , it's

2:55

been out actually about six

2:57

months , and I just wanted

2:59

to reflect on the experience of writing this

3:01

book and what the process looked

3:03

like , how I came up with the

3:05

ideas and just what that looks

3:07

like and what it means , I think , for

3:09

the way that I'm approaching science

3:12

, communication in my life and approaching even

3:14

parts of my career , because it's fundamentally

3:16

changed the way I think about some

3:18

things , and also I'm

3:21

very proud of this book . I'm very proud of this

3:23

book and I want you

3:25

to maybe be excited about it too . I

3:28

wanted you to hear a little bit more about it , so we're going

3:30

to talk about Plants of the Rescue today and

3:32

I'm going to play some music at you . We're going

3:35

to come back and talk about publishing and

3:37

talk about talking to kids about plants . I

3:39

love you , I'm glad you're here . Let's talk some

3:42

more . All

3:57

right , we're back . So

3:59

, first off , I do owe you an explanation

4:02

, I think , especially if you've been someone who has

4:04

been with me since the beginning and there are kind

4:06

of a lot of you . I

4:09

posted on social media a couple of days ago that

4:11

I was about to start recording doing

4:13

this again . I posted a picture of my

4:15

new setup in here which you can kind of see

4:17

. I'm in a new office . I've had some career

4:20

and life changes recently which I'll talk about in a minute

4:22

, but

4:25

people were excited , like , what's that

4:27

about ? I'm glad you like listening

4:29

. I'm glad that you've stuck with

4:31

me through all of this . If you're keeping

4:33

score , it's been about seven

4:35

months or six and a half months since I put out an episode

4:38

. I released a great interview

4:40

with Sarah Sutherland , who is the absolute genius

4:43

behind the Oklahoma Department of

4:45

Wildlife Social Media , and

4:47

if you haven't listened to that , go back and listen to it . It

4:49

was episode 99 . It's

4:51

so good , it's so good , and I was like I'm going

4:53

to take this is a great point to

4:55

kind of like put a pin in it for a minute . I was going

4:57

to take the summer off and like get

5:00

through July and

5:02

August because I was doing some travel from work and

5:04

some other things . So I'm going to start right at the beginning

5:06

of the semester , and about three

5:08

days before the semester started we had some staffing

5:10

changes at my university . I ended

5:12

up with two extra classes that I

5:15

had not planned on , as well

5:17

as some other stuff that I ended up having

5:19

to do sort of last minute and because

5:21

of that I just did not have the time or the

5:23

band with to record this show

5:25

and I really in

5:28

some ways regret that , like I wish I had had

5:30

the time to do it . But it was a good

5:32

opportunity for me to reset a little bit . I've

5:34

been doing this every week or every other week more

5:36

or less for four years , and

5:39

it gets to be a lot . So I've kind of

5:41

stepped back and re-evaluated how I want to approach

5:43

the show . We'll talk at the end of the episode

5:45

about what the future of plantarology

5:47

looks like , but it's coming back probably

5:50

every other week-ish and

5:52

I'm just really excited

5:54

about where it's going . But again , as

5:57

I was thinking about what to discuss for

5:59

today's episode , maybe

6:02

it's a shameless plug , maybe it is shameless

6:04

self-promotion and if you know me , that's

6:07

my only skill is shameless

6:09

self-promotion I wanted to talk about plants to the

6:11

rescue . This has been

6:13

such a labor of

6:15

love for me over the past couple of years

6:17

in terms of the writing of the book

6:19

, the promotion of the book , everything

6:22

else , and it's something that I'm genuinely

6:24

proud of . And also , if you know me , you

6:27

know that's not something I say lightly or lightly

6:29

. You know that's not something I say lightly Because

6:31

I am rarely , if we're being very

6:33

honest , proud of myself , and

6:36

this is something that means a lot

6:38

to me . So , if you don't know , plants

6:40

to the Rescue is a nonfiction

6:43

kids book that I wrote and it's

6:45

titled the Plant's Trees in Fungi . Yes

6:47

, I cheated a little bit . They're solving

6:49

some of the world's biggest problems and it's about

6:52

things like the climate crisis , about

6:55

pollution in our environment , about

6:57

hunger and food supply . But

6:59

it's also a hopeful

7:01

take , I think . I hope I want it to be

7:03

, on what the future of plant science

7:05

and natural science look like . We

7:08

discuss a lot of maybe

7:11

partially speculative science things

7:14

I don't think most of them are , because there are

7:16

data and there are articles about what's

7:18

happening in all these different fields but we

7:20

talk about current technology and

7:23

how it's helping us face our issues , as

7:25

well as future technology and what

7:28

future technology may look like and

7:30

how us , integrating plants more

7:32

and more into our lives again , can

7:34

help with climate change and help with a lot of the things

7:36

that we struggle with as a global

7:40

society , as a species

7:42

. So I

7:44

was approached about this book . Actually

7:46

, thanks to you folks , in some ways

7:49

, an

7:51

editor , sam , who

7:53

is just the best guy he's

7:56

been so good to work with From NeonSquid

7:58

, reached out to me in March

8:01

I want to say February , march of

8:04

2022 . So a couple of years

8:06

ago , almost two years ago now . Wow , that's

8:08

a little upsetting , it's

8:10

been almost two years already but he reached

8:13

out and said

8:15

hey , we found the podcast

8:17

, we listened to Plant Apology , we found some of your

8:19

social media stuff which , again

8:21

, you all have promoted and you all

8:23

have been out there telling the good

8:25

word of Plant Apology and

8:27

said we've got an idea for a book and

8:29

we're looking for an author to contract with

8:31

which you'd be interested in doing it

8:34

, and I missed the first email

8:36

because of course I did . That's

8:38

how my life goes . And thank

8:40

goodness , sam had the grace to follow

8:42

up a couple of weeks later and say hey , you know , I

8:45

hope that you saw it . I , you know , I hope that you're interested

8:47

. And I was like , oh my goodness , yes , absolutely I am . I've

8:50

wanted to write a book since I was probably

8:52

I don't know a junior high . I

8:54

grew up reading voraciously

8:57

as a kid , as a teenager

9:00

, even through college . It wasn't really till grad

9:02

school that I shifted the

9:04

things I read from fun stuff to

9:07

journal articles and textbooks

9:09

and stuff and my brain decided to start

9:11

dissolving , as a grad school will do

9:13

if you have been to grad school . But

9:16

this opportunity was not necessarily

9:18

something I was looking for and it's not how

9:20

I saw myself or anticipated writing

9:23

a book . I think I always wanted to be a fiction

9:25

or science fiction author . But

9:28

my son , bradley who , if you go

9:30

back and if you've been a long time friend of the show , you have heard his little voice

9:32

on this show more than once and

9:34

we're going to do that again this year . I

9:37

can't wait to get Bradley back on the microphone because he's hilarious and

9:39

my favorite little chaos Gremlin . But

9:43

he was six when I started the process of writing this

9:45

book and as

9:48

we were going through the process of trying to figure out who , what age group

9:50

it was for it

9:52

was really for like eight to 10 , eight to 12 year olds

9:54

, so sort of what third through fifth grade

9:57

, third through sixth grade , somewhere in there these

9:59

middle readers , older elementary

10:01

students and I was thinking about it I

10:05

was like , well , you know , he's going to be in this target

10:07

market Really by the time the book comes out . He's eight

10:09

now . He just turned eight and he's always

10:11

been a good reader and he's a great reader now and

10:15

I was like how cool would it be for

10:17

, at the age that he is , if I get to write

10:19

a book for him and I'm going to

10:21

, I might get emotional during this . I'm going to try not to . He's

10:26

such a smart kid and he's so curious and he loves

10:28

plants and he loves animals and he loves nature and

10:32

I thought what a cool opportunity

10:34

for me personally , just as a father and a scientist

10:36

and a science communicator , to

10:40

get to talk directly to my own kid

10:42

through

10:44

the process or in the process of writing a book for other

10:46

people's kids , for kids that literally around the world

10:49

now , and I said , yeah , let's do

10:51

it , let's do it . So we

10:53

went through this process . They had a few of the sort of

10:55

topics picked for the book already because they had to sell

10:58

the book and they

11:00

were looking again to contract with me as an author and then a separate

11:03

illustrator , which , by the way , brian Lambert fantastic Our

11:06

illustrator was so good for this . I

11:08

cannot say enough about Brian and

11:10

if you're watching online , you'll get to see some

11:12

pictures from the book and hopefully , if you have

11:14

the book if

11:18

you don't have the book , you can get the book

11:20

. We'll talk about that later . And

11:24

so the way it kind of

11:26

worked is this was not a chapter

11:29

based book . It didn't have like set sections

11:31

. We wanted to talk about cool

11:33

advancements in science , things

11:37

that are happening now , things that have happened in the past with the planet

11:39

, with scientific advancement , but also

11:41

where we were headed in the future

11:43

with plant science . So we picked about 30

11:45

different topics . This book's about 80 pages

11:48

long . I picked like

11:50

30 topics and each

11:52

of those topics gets like two pages , so

11:54

it's a little bit more than that . There's some early material

11:57

and end material maybe 33 topics and

12:00

each one of them is fairly short

12:02

. But they're intended

12:05

to get kids interested

12:07

in science , get kids

12:09

interested in plant science and things

12:12

like . Can

12:15

spinach send emails ? And if you hear

12:17

these sounds in the mic , I'm sort of flipping

12:19

through the book a little bit . But

12:21

just a few of the topics we covered . We

12:23

talked about some of the challenges that we're facing

12:25

as a species . We talked about what

12:28

it means to grow plants and for plants

12:30

to grow in a hotter climate

12:32

. We talked about what we called super

12:34

plants and picked a few super plants like bananas

12:37

and aloe vera and a few others . We talked

12:39

about plants that can glow in the dark

12:41

and plants that can produce electricity

12:44

for our cities . We talked about

12:46

living bridges in greener cities

12:48

and what growing plants for

12:50

pollinators might look like and the value

12:52

of prairies and all these different things . And

12:55

they're all just short , little bites that

12:58

are not

13:01

extensive and they're by design not

13:03

extensive because we didn't

13:05

want this to be a textbook . I did

13:07

not want this to be a textbook . I'd give enough textbooks

13:10

in my life . I wanted it to be something

13:12

that gets kids and readers

13:14

excited about some of the topics

13:16

so they can go do their own inquiry , so

13:19

they can look into it more

13:21

, so they can go to the library and check out a book

13:23

about ficus

13:25

trees and living bridges or go

13:27

find articles on it or talk

13:29

about how plants can clean the air . It's

13:32

just supposed to be a jumping point in

13:34

an overview of some of the things that are happening

13:36

in the world of plants . My

13:39

wife , alana , for a long

13:41

time was an education

13:43

director at our local science

13:45

museum and she actually retired

13:48

we're going to say retired this summer to

13:51

be able to spend more time with Bradley and pursue some

13:53

different things and that's been awesome . But

13:56

one of my favorite stories she tells is about

13:58

this dad who would come in with his daughter to

14:00

the museum and every

14:03

time they would come in they would be sort

14:05

of sort after something else . I don't know

14:07

if that's the right way to say it , but

14:10

this little girl would be pursuing

14:12

a new area of interest and

14:15

Alana got to talking to this dad

14:17

and he said , yes , she gets excited about

14:19

, say , physics or astronomy

14:21

and they'll go to the library and

14:24

check out a book or a couple of books

14:26

about physics and astronomy and

14:28

they will deep dive

14:30

into it for a while . Right

14:32

, they will learn what there is to learn

14:34

about it . And then , when she's interested

14:36

in something new , they go find that new

14:39

thing to dive into . And I

14:41

think about that a lot , in

14:43

the way that we chase our interests as people

14:45

, with scientists , as people who want to learn about

14:48

the world around us , because I think we

14:50

silo ourselves a lot and

14:52

it's like this is the thing I have to do and

14:54

I have to learn about . This is the only thing

14:56

I can learn about forever and

14:58

I'm going to spend 30 years in school . These

15:01

are , you know where my scars live , you can tell

15:03

, studying them and figuring

15:05

them out , when really it's like , oh , this thing is cool

15:08

this week . What if I spend a week learning

15:10

about this and the next week

15:12

, this thing is cool ? And then eventually we drill

15:14

down into what our interests are

15:16

and where we're passionate and

15:19

what we want to chase after in our lives . So as

15:21

I wrote this book , I was thinking about this little girl

15:23

who I've never met , this dad who I've never met but

15:26

who threw a lot of me , such a big impact

15:28

on my life , because

15:30

I want that kid

15:32

to be able to be like . You know what ? I

15:35

think it's so cool that we can build buildings out of wood

15:37

. I'm going to go study that for weeks . I

15:39

think it's amazing that

15:41

we can propagate plants

15:44

by taking cuttings of them . I'm going to go take

15:46

some cuttings from my yard and propagate

15:48

plants for a week or two . I want

15:50

that kid to have some

15:52

new ideas and I want them to find

15:54

things to dive into and learn more about

15:56

. So if this one book is

15:58

all they ever read about plants , that's cool too

16:01

. I hope that they get a lot out of

16:03

it . But I hope that this book is the

16:05

first of dozens or hundreds

16:07

of books and articles and pieces

16:09

of information and classes and a lifetime

16:11

of learning in the plant sciences that

16:13

that a lot of kids get . That's

16:15

my goal . That's why I wrote this . That's

16:17

why I said yes to this and

16:20

it's been so much fun . It's been so much fun . This was

16:22

like a year long process . I thought

16:24

I'd talk a little bit more about the

16:27

publishing side of it , kind of what we did and what

16:30

that looks like , where

16:32

some of the ideas came from , and then I

16:35

actually , after the break , want

16:37

to read a couple of excerpts of this to

16:39

you in case you're interested , okay , and

16:42

so we'll talk now , I think

16:44

, about the

16:47

publication process and the ideas for this book

16:49

. So , like I mentioned , they contacted me

16:51

and this was not a traditional , maybe publishing

16:53

relationship . This was more of a freelance , like

16:56

contract style Publishing

16:58

relationship , which I was cool with . I think that

17:00

that's not a bad way to approach

17:03

it . I was a first time author . I didn't

17:05

really know what I was doing in . It kind

17:07

of takes some of the pressure out that if it

17:09

does really well , great

17:12

, that's awesome , it's good for everyone . If it Flops

17:14

, then I still kind of get a lot out of

17:16

it and get the experience . You paid something for it

17:18

and that was cool . And so

17:21

we went through the the year of sort

17:23

of the writing process . I think I started writing

17:25

In March of 2022

17:27

and the final draft was due in like November

17:29

, so not quite a year , but I think before

17:31

like a final product was done . It took

17:34

about a year and it came out July

17:36

11 , 2023 , a Week

17:39

or so after my birthday , which was kind

17:41

of a cool birthday present . I got to do a book signing Y'all

17:43

. I got to do a book launch . Who gets to do

17:45

that and whose life is this . I think that was

17:48

so cool . So a local bookstore

17:50

hosted us for a book signing when the

17:52

book came out and that was just one of the coolest

17:54

experiences , one of the coolest things . But

17:58

we went through this process . We it

18:00

was interesting because they had the idea for the book , they had the title

18:03

for the book Plants to the Rescue and

18:05

the general concept of we want to do

18:07

little bites of scientific

18:09

things that

18:11

will kind of make this larger story about

18:14

plant science . And they

18:16

, like I said , written the first couple or come up

18:18

with the first couple topics . But

18:20

beyond that they were like , okay , go

18:23

, we need this many pages , we

18:25

need this many additional topics , let's

18:28

figure it out . And so I came up

18:30

with a list and I got the topics for

18:32

one by talking to Bradley about maybe things

18:34

he thought was interesting . I went through

18:37

popular science magazines and like

18:39

current news and plant science

18:41

and I even read some interesting

18:43

publications on like speculative plant science

18:45

. But I also started thinking about

18:47

, as someone who teaches college students intro

18:50

horticulture students , what

18:52

questions do they ask at 18

18:54

, 19 , whatever years old ? What

18:58

do they think is interesting ? What questions do

19:00

they have about plant science ? What

19:02

are the little like factoids that

19:04

stick with them . I was like , oh , I've

19:07

got limitless content

19:09

, limitless content , and

19:11

so not everything worked . Obviously there were some things

19:13

that didn't quite fit the brief well enough

19:15

and maybe we had to pivot

19:18

on some things . But so many of the ideas for

19:20

this book and a lot of the discussion points came directly

19:23

from one talking to Bradley , doing

19:25

research on my own online , but just questions

19:27

that I was asked by my students . And

19:29

okay , if these 18 , 19

19:31

year olds had seen this for the first time

19:34

in the

19:36

third grade , at nine , 10

19:38

years old , what would that have meant for the course

19:41

of their studies in their life , what

19:43

they have like grabbed onto one of these

19:45

things as a kid and been

19:47

more of a sort of plant and nature conscious

19:49

young adult . And those were

19:52

my thoughts as we formed some of these

19:54

topics and

19:56

you know again , going back and forth

19:58

all of that , we figured out okay , these are our topics

20:01

. We organized and reorganized

20:03

and reorganized them over and over

20:05

and I saw

20:07

a review of the book , which I

20:09

don't know . The reception has

20:11

been really good . People have been very , very kind

20:13

about plates to the rescue , online and

20:16

everywhere else , but I saw a review from

20:18

a so I guess , professional or sort

20:20

of bigger name book reviewer that said , like

20:23

the content's good , it's very hopeful , all that

20:25

, but it's sort of like scattershot . It

20:27

jumps around a lot , it does and

20:30

again , sort of by design , we didn't format

20:35

this in chapters or anything , it's just all these

20:37

different topics we're talking about and

20:39

this is , if you actually look at this book , it's

20:41

just kind of a good or scary

20:43

or something picture of how my brain

20:46

works , or better or worse , and

20:48

so that's

20:50

sort of how it was formed . And

20:53

you know , with the process , I turned

20:55

in my final draft , I think , november of 2022

20:58

. Oh , one thing I was going to say , too

21:00

, is that in the process , all

21:02

the artwork that

21:05

you'll see in the book , all the illustrations and I'll hold

21:07

this up for the online folks and I'll

21:09

hopefully have some

21:11

some things that you can see on social media

21:14

as well and find a good one . Where's

21:16

a really good one ? I mean , they're all good . This

21:19

is cool . And so this , this chapter or

21:21

this spread , is called cactus bags and it talks

21:23

about how some scientists have

21:25

found ways that we can make like bio plastics

21:27

out of prickly pear and other types

21:30

of cactus , and these illustrations are honestly

21:32

just gorgeous . Just just beautiful

21:34

. And the way it sort of worked is that

21:36

our illustrator , brian , I

21:39

gave sort of text

21:42

based like I wrote out my ideas for

21:44

what I thought the spread should look like , the

21:46

artwork on the spread should look like , and

21:48

maybe included some reference pictures

21:50

, and then he

21:53

came up with just the most amazing product . Just

21:55

incredible , honestly , like I

21:58

envisioned how they would look in my brain and

22:00

Brian just took it like 1020 leaps and bounds past

22:02

that . I don't . I'm

22:05

not creative in that way . So thinking

22:07

about how to take like words on a page to

22:10

the gorgeous illustrations

22:12

is so foreign to me and I'm so impressed . And

22:14

one thing you'll notice as you

22:16

read through

22:18

this book and look at the illustrations is how diverse it is

22:20

. It represents a ton

22:22

of cultures and peoples and

22:25

it shows the folks with disabilities , that

22:27

shows mixed

22:30

and blended families , that shows all kinds of

22:32

things that are such cool representations of how

22:35

our world is . And I think there

22:37

are so many kids that could see themselves in this book because

22:40

they'll see a piece of our work

22:42

in here . But that looks like me and my family and

22:45

I love that , that I am as proud of that in

22:48

this final product , as I am probably

22:50

in my own writing

22:53

and Brian's incredible work of turning

22:56

this into something beautiful and fun and accessible is

23:00

just . I cannot say enough about

23:02

that . Cannot say enough about that . It's just just

23:04

incredible . And

23:07

then we went back and forth . I started to be able to promote the book , I believe in

23:09

March of 2023

23:12

. So I started talking about

23:15

the book on social media . We did pre-order , we did all that . It

23:18

finally launched on July 11th and , like I said , I got to

23:20

do a book signing and then I got to do like

23:23

a virtual book signing and seminar

23:25

through a bookstore in New York City as well , called Books of Wonder

23:29

, and the bookstore here

23:31

locally that I worked with was called Books of Second Chance Books and

23:35

both of them were just so wonderful

23:37

, it was so wonderful and it's just so wonderful and

23:40

it's . I've had some cool opportunities to talk about

23:42

the books on on the book , on podcasts and

23:44

on social media and different things . But I

23:46

realized that again , I have not

23:48

done an episode of the show since this book came out

23:50

. I know I talked about it a little bit before the break , or

23:53

my big long break , hiatus , whatever we

23:55

want to call it hibernation , um

23:58

, but never really in a lot of

24:00

detail . So , again , I wanted to do a whole episode

24:02

on this and I

24:04

will say that working with neon squid was

24:06

an absolute dream come true for

24:08

a first time author . They

24:10

were kind and flexible and

24:12

generous with feedback and ideas

24:15

and , um , they

24:17

have been rock stars in

24:19

terms of the whole publication

24:22

process , the promotion of the book , just

24:24

supporting me as an author and

24:26

as a first time author , and the scientists

24:28

and everything else . Just just really wonderful

24:31

, really really genuinely

24:33

so wonderful . I can't say

24:35

enough about them . And um , also

24:38

, neon squids is an imprint or

24:40

a subsidiary of mcmillan kids

24:42

international . Mcmillan books are the

24:44

biggest publishers in the world and

24:46

and the publication team from mcmillan

24:48

as well that worked with us to

24:50

promote the book and set up the book

24:52

signings and things like that . Just again

24:56

, I'm new to publishing . I've got

24:58

maybe some more things coming

25:00

out in the future . Stay tuned . I've got some ideas

25:02

and some feelers out for stuff , but I don't know

25:05

what the publication process is normally

25:07

like . I I hear mixed things

25:09

and some horror stories and some

25:12

really good stories , but I

25:14

have to say that my experience

25:16

, start to finish , was fabulous . Couldn't

25:18

have been better . I I'm so

25:21

happy to have been a part of it , so

25:23

happy to be been a part of it . Um , let's

25:25

take a quick break . We'll go to a midroll . I'll

25:27

say some different words that you

25:29

. It's still just me . There's no guests this week

25:31

, and then I want to read a couple

25:34

of excerpts from the book , a couple of different spreads

25:36

, and I want to talk about

25:38

the future of plant apology , just a

25:40

little bit before we wrap up , and

25:42

I'll tell you about some of the upcoming guests . I want

25:44

to keep some of it sort of a secret , but

25:47

I'm really excited about some of the interviews I've got lined

25:49

up and and then we'll go from there

25:51

. So let's take a break and I'll

25:53

be right back . Well

25:57

, hey there , welcome to the midroll . My friends , I haven't

25:59

gotten to do that creepy voice in a while and it brought

26:01

me a little bit of joy . I'm not going

26:04

to lie to you . Um , not

26:06

too much to cover today at the midroll . Find me

26:08

on social media . I am

26:10

plant apology pod on instagram

26:12

. Plant apology underscore on

26:14

whatever it is . The twitter

26:17

is now x . I guess I'm not on there very much

26:19

anymore . Plant apology on facebook

26:21

um , I am also the plant

26:23

prof and I've done started doing since the last

26:26

time we met uh or spoke

26:28

a lot more with my

26:30

plant prof outlet . So instagram

26:33

, youtube , hit

26:36

, talk , others , I

26:38

you can find me as well as of the plant

26:40

prof if you want to send me an email . You've

26:43

got tips for the show , ideas for

26:46

topics or guests or whatever else . You can

26:48

reach out to me at plant apology pod at gmailcom

26:51

. I was going to tell you that

26:53

you could go to plant apology podcom

26:55

and find all things plant apology

26:57

, including old episodes and merch and everything else . But

26:59

in the

27:01

six months of out of sight , out of mind

27:03

I had with the podcast

27:06

, I apparently forgot to change

27:08

my billing info with

27:11

my website host and

27:13

so now if you go to plant through policy

27:15

podcom , it is an

27:17

indonesian gambling website

27:20

which

27:23

is less than ideal , right ? Yeah

27:25

, not great . So I'm

27:27

thinking about ways to approach that

27:30

. I don't want to have to go pay an indonesian

27:32

gambling website to get my domain

27:34

back . So probably what I'm going to do is I'm working on

27:36

my uh personal professional

27:38

website , vicrambeligacom , and

27:40

it'll probably be a slash plant apology

27:43

where you can find all of those things and

27:45

merch and stuff like that . Stay tuned . For

27:47

now , just go hit me up on social media or send

27:49

me an email . You can subscribe to plant apology

27:51

anywhere you like to get your podcasts now

27:54

, I guess including youtube , assuming

27:56

that this video thing works . I'm

27:58

trying very hard and I'm being very awkward

28:00

and you probably can't hear it in my voice , but you

28:02

can see it in my face . So yay

28:05

for that . Thanks so much to the

28:07

texas tech department of plant and soil science for

28:09

continuing to support the show . Thanks

28:11

to the davis college of agricultural science and

28:13

natural resources for also doing likewise

28:16

. I've got some great guests from

28:18

my college and from my department coming on the show

28:20

over the spring and summer . And

28:23

thanks to you most of all for listening

28:25

and for sticking with me and for

28:27

being my friends and for the great

28:30

engagement and conversation

28:32

and all the love you've shown me over the past four

28:34

years and change um y'all

28:38

. It has meant the

28:40

world to me and I mean that

28:42

more than I can tell you . And

28:44

, uh , just thanks for being a part of it . So

28:47

, uh , I'll start rambling about that . We

28:50

will listen to some more music for just

28:52

a second and then we'll

28:54

be back with a couple of readings from the

28:56

book . Okie

29:01

dokie , we are back . So

29:03

I picked three spreads

29:06

from the book , or three topics from the book to read , and

29:08

I'll tell you why I picked them , as as I do

29:10

and I don't know exactly how to facilitate

29:13

this , because the way that this is is format

29:15

is it's not just like a block of text , there's little

29:17

text blocks and , again , if you're watching

29:19

this clip somewhere , if you're watching online , you

29:22

can kind of see that there's just areas of text

29:24

, but I think it'll still read , ok in

29:27

this venue . And , um , if you want

29:29

to see some of the images , all

29:31

it'll probably do is in the show

29:33

notes or in the blog post that

29:35

goes with this episode . I'll just take pictures

29:37

of the spreads so you can look at them and

29:39

sort of follow along . If you'd like , I will

29:42

give you a second . Okay

29:47

, good enough . So the first one

29:49

that I'm going to read is called spinach emails

29:51

. Spinach emails , and the reason I wanted to read

29:53

this one is because when neon

29:55

squid reached out to me about writing

29:58

for them , they wanted a writing sample , and

30:00

so I don't know how to do that . So

30:02

they asked for like 250 words or something

30:04

on a topic that would be fun for

30:07

kids and I had just read an article

30:09

on this , and so what you read

30:11

here it's changed a little bit from the

30:13

original form , but

30:17

this is the actual pitch , or

30:19

a writing sample . I sent into neon

30:22

squid to get approved to write this book

30:24

, so that was kind of cool . So spinach emails

30:26

and , if you can see this , there's

30:28

a picture of spinach , the spinach emails , and

30:30

there's little envelopes like they're sending emails . So

30:33

scientists at the massachusetts institute

30:35

of technology or mit have

30:38

created spinach the consent emails . You

30:40

read that right ? This , of course , leads

30:42

us to two important questions how and

30:45

why ? The answers are

30:47

all to do with the spinach plants

30:49

. Roots and the spinach

30:51

roots are very sensitive to their environment

30:53

. It shows roots from a spinach plant establishing

30:56

out through the soil the

30:58

root of the problem . Spinach plants grow

31:00

big root systems . These roots suspend

31:02

their time exploring the soil , looking

31:05

for water and nutrients to help them grow . Turns

31:07

out they can find many other things than that

31:10

as well , things

31:12

that can teach us more about their environment

31:14

too . From microorganisms to

31:16

harmful chemicals , spinach roots can provide

31:18

us with lots of information . Nanotechnology

31:22

, by the way , is defined as the science

31:24

of really tiny things , so

31:27

nanotubes are used to make

31:29

most of the information spinach roots

31:31

can provide . Scientists had to figure out a way

31:33

of getting inside spinach

31:35

plants with their technology , and the

31:37

way they did it was by implanting

31:40

tiny carbon nanotubules

31:42

inside the leaves and

31:44

it's kind of it's hard to see , but

31:46

there's a very happy little spinach right

31:48

there Seeing very happy little spinach . There's

31:52

a message from spinach that says spinach , something

31:54

here you should see , guys and

31:56

inside to say nice work agent spinach

31:58

. And there's a bunch of emails from spinach

32:01

to say from spinach , pollution detected from

32:03

spinach all clear today from

32:05

spinach worm problems . From

32:07

cabbage we need to talk . If

32:09

you ever get an email from your

32:11

cabbage that says we need to talk , you

32:14

should be concerned . Those conversations

32:16

never go well , especially with cabbage . They're infamous

32:18

for really hard conversations . And

32:21

then another section says you've got mail

32:23

. When the spinach plants pull up water with toxins

32:25

or other harmful chemicals dissolved in it , the

32:27

tube sends signals back to a monitor

32:29

that emails the information back to scientists

32:32

. This technology could be used

32:34

to record changes in soil , warning us about

32:36

pollution , climate change and other

32:38

problems . At this moment in time the

32:40

technology isn't being in the used

32:43

in the real world , only in research

32:45

settings . But give it time . And

32:47

then these scientists are high fiving and

32:49

everyone's very happy . I would be very happy to

32:51

if my spinach sent me an email

32:53

. Again . I would be concerned

32:55

if I got a cryptically worded . We

32:58

need to talk email from my cabbage , okay

33:00

, another one

33:02

that I was very excited about

33:04

. That I really like . This is some of my

33:06

favorite artwork in the book actually

33:08

is glow in the dark

33:10

plants . So again

33:13

, glow in the dark plants . And it shows a

33:15

variety of different house plants and some other things

33:18

basil and watercress and a few

33:20

other things that are glowy

33:22

, and there's a squid that is also

33:24

glowy and a firefly who

33:26

you guessed ? It glowy . And

33:29

in the top right corner there's a woman reading

33:31

a book by plant light . So

33:34

, glow in the dark plants . We've

33:37

all used bedside lamps and nightlights , but

33:39

what if you could be reading this book by plant

33:41

light ? Scientists have discovered they can

33:43

make plants glow in the dark . How

33:46

it works to make a plant grow scientists

33:48

inject its leaves with nanoparticles

33:50

that can absorb light energy and

33:52

release it slowly at night . In

33:55

the future , genes from glowing animals can be added

33:57

to plants so they would be able

33:59

to naturally grow . Bioluminescence

34:01

is lots of fun . There's a whole nature cat song about

34:04

it . You should look it up . It's very good . What a bright

34:06

idea . Scientists have managed to make water

34:08

crest glow as

34:10

well as basil . So what's

34:12

the point ? Glowing plants may

34:15

sound silly , but they can have a huge impact . Electric

34:17

lights use a lot of energy and they can mess with animals

34:19

that navigate by starlight or the dark

34:22

to hunt . Imagine

34:24

roads lined with glowing trees , bright

34:27

enough to see where you're going , but soft enough to be

34:29

wildlife friendly . Also , how cool

34:31

would it be if your favorite houseplant was also

34:33

your lamp ? I think that would be very cool

34:35

. I might take better care of my favorite

34:37

houseplants . I'm not a

34:40

good houseplant caretaker . I don't know if

34:42

I should admit that to y'all , but it's the truth

34:44

. I kill a lot of houseplants . I'm not . I'm not good

34:46

at glowing in nature

34:48

. Plenty of things in nature already

34:50

glow . This is called bioluminescence

34:53

and it's caused by chemical reactions

34:55

. Deep sea squid and anglerfish use

34:57

their ability to glow to

34:59

hunt in the dark , while fireflies light

35:02

themselves up to attract mates . By

35:04

studying these animals , scientists have

35:06

a better idea of how to make

35:09

plants grow . This is scientists from

35:11

MIT made plants that glow

35:13

for more than an hour . That's pretty

35:16

cool If you look this up and read into

35:18

it a little bit more , you'll see that they didn't glow

35:20

very brightly for an hour . But

35:22

the fact that we can make a plant glow

35:24

for a full hour , that's incredible

35:27

to me . That's so cool . They

35:29

don't normally do that . If you

35:31

didn't know , if you weren't aware , if you don't spend a lot

35:33

of time around plants at night , they

35:35

typically don't glow . The last

35:37

spread I want to read to you is called Save the Prairies

35:40

. I like this one

35:42

because I live on a prairie . West

35:44

Texas where I live is native short grass prairie

35:46

. So yes , if you walked around

35:48

where I live today , it's a lot of agricultural

35:50

land and cotton fields and pastures

35:53

and things like that . But if you were to go back , even

35:55

a couple of hundred years , this was all short to medium

35:57

grass prairie , one

36:01

to three to five foot tall grass , about

36:03

as far as you can see , really an endless

36:05

sea of foliage , and there were natural springs

36:07

and there were large animals

36:09

. Prairies are so important

36:12

to me personally because I think it's just one of

36:14

the coolest ecosystems out there , but

36:16

on a grander scale . To us

36:18

as a global ecosystem , as

36:20

a planet , we really need prairies , and so

36:22

this spread is called Save the Prairies

36:24

and I love this artwork too

36:26

. It shows a prairie with bison and

36:29

a number of wildflowers

36:31

and bumblebees and all kinds

36:33

of other things , and it's really cool

36:35

. And , by the way , if you're in a very national park

36:38

, don't pet the fluffy

36:40

cows . A bison however big

36:42

you think a bison is , you're wrong

36:44

. I promise they're twice

36:46

the size that you think

36:49

they are if you've never seen one in person . An

36:51

unimaginably large beef

36:54

right Big animal . Okay

36:56

, anyway , I digress Save the prairies

36:58

. Prairies are unique ecosystems made up mostly

37:00

of grasses . They

37:03

also contain a huge mix of flour shrubs

37:05

, herbs and other plants that you normally won't

37:07

see many trees . When we talk about ways

37:10

to fight climate change , prairies often don't come into

37:12

the conversation , but they're incredibly

37:14

important . As prairie plants

37:17

grow , die and decompose year after

37:19

year . They feed and shelter wildlife , take

37:21

CO2 out of the atmosphere and add nutrients back

37:24

into the ground . If we take care

37:26

of them , these amazing ecosystems can

37:28

help us save the world Globally

37:30

. Prairies trap about as much carbon

37:33

and produce as much oxygen as all the trees . And

37:37

then it shows a picture of a non-native prairie grass , or

37:39

like a landscape grass with a short little root system , and

37:43

then a picture of a native prairie grass that has

37:45

a deep , powerful , far-reaching

37:47

root system , which , by the way this is an aside

37:49

, but that's really important you

37:53

want . It creates root channels for water to get down into and adds nitrogen

37:56

to the soil all kinds of things , anyway , home

38:00

on the Prairie . Prairies are homes to many

38:02

different animals . It's common to find hundreds

38:04

of different insects , rodents , birds , lizards and even big mammals such as bison and antelope . The

38:10

rich diversity of plants provide food for

38:12

the big animals and plenty of places to live , hide

38:14

and hunt for the small ones . Medicinal

38:18

plants Many medicines we use today come from plants that live in

38:20

the world's prairies . The

38:24

grasses , flowers and shrubs of these incredible places are extremely

38:26

valuable to our health , from

38:29

echinacea that boosts our immune systems and

38:31

helps us keep from getting sick , to yarrow that

38:33

can help to treat wounds . Native

38:36

plants are those that naturally live in an

38:38

area or country . They

38:40

tend to be well suited to the environment and can grow

38:43

and thrive with very little care , often

38:45

sending roots farther down into the ground and

38:47

producing bigger plants than non-native species

38:49

. And then , finally , there's a tiny little

38:51

section on prairie style

38:53

gardening . Although city landscapes are

38:55

not natural , there are many things we can do to make

38:58

them more environmentally friendly . Picking

39:00

prairie plants that are well-adapt to deer climate

39:02

means they require less watering and fertilizer

39:04

. Plus , you don't need to use pesticides

39:07

, because the plants will attract bugs and birds

39:09

that will take care of the pests for

39:11

you . So this is an appeal , along

39:13

with a couple of future sections

39:16

in the book , to use native plants and

39:18

pollinator friendly plants . But those

39:20

are just a couple of sections I thought that it'd be fun

39:22

to talk about on this podcast and read

39:24

to you . And again , if you look at the cover

39:26

of this book , like it's just , it's just so pretty , it's

39:29

so pretty and I know I'm biased , but it's so pretty . And

39:31

as I was trying to decide which spreads

39:34

to read to you today , it was a little bit

39:36

like trying to pick a favorite child . For

39:39

me that's easy because I only have the one

39:41

, but I imagine if you had multiple children you're

39:43

not really supposed to have a favorite . But the three

39:45

I read , I think , mean a lot to me

39:47

for a variety of reasons that

39:49

I explained a little bit , but all of them , I

39:51

think , were such good information . It was a lot of fun to

39:54

write and I hope it's something that if you have bought

39:56

it , that you and your family are enjoying

39:58

. I've had some wonderfully kind feedback

40:00

from friends and even people I've never

40:02

met internet acquaintances , people

40:05

I'm not connected to directly in any way

40:07

, that have said just the most wonderful things about the book . A

40:11

couple of things about it . If you'd like to pick up

40:13

a copy of the book , it's available on

40:15

Barnes , noble and Books of Wonder and

40:17

Amazon and pretty much everywhere online

40:19

, and you're welcome to go pick it up there

40:21

. I'm working on getting

40:24

set up so that I can directly

40:26

sell signed copies of the book if you would like

40:28

that , along with maybe some anthropology

40:30

stickers and some other swag

40:33

to go along with it . I'm not

40:35

quite done with that . I'm hoping to get that set up

40:37

over the next two or three weeks and I'll let y'all know

40:39

how and where you can purchase a

40:41

signed copy directly from me when that

40:43

gets sorted out . But if you want to buy

40:45

it before that , by all means please go

40:47

to a local bookstore and request

40:50

it or check out an online book

40:52

seller Amazon or anything else that's available

40:54

. I believe right now it's on sale

40:56

for about $14 , something

40:58

like that , and again

41:01

, I hope that it's something that

41:03

if you do buy it , and no pressure to buy it . Please

41:06

don't misunderstand me . I would love

41:08

for this to be on your bookshelf at

41:10

home , but I just also am so

41:12

appreciative that you listened to me talk about it for the

41:14

last I don't know 30 minutes or so , 40

41:17

minutes or so . So , again

41:19

, plants of the Rescue out for the

41:21

past six months . It's available everywhere

41:23

and I hope that it's something that

41:25

you will add to your bookshelf . If

41:27

you think that it's something that you and your family would enjoy

41:29

, and do go pick it up one

41:32

of these days . Let me know what you think

41:34

, send me some feedback , email it to me or review

41:36

it online somewhere or post a picture on social

41:39

media . It would mean a lot just

41:41

for helping promote the book and just letting

41:43

me know that maybe I hit the mark

41:45

, or even if I missed the mark in some places

41:47

. I would love to know your thoughts . Finally

41:50

, as we wrap up here in the last couple

41:52

of minutes , I just want to talk about the future

41:54

of plant apology , because this

41:57

is again something that's very important to me and

42:00

, as far as I'm concerned , we're back at

42:02

it . It is likely never going to be

42:04

a weekly podcast again . That just really

42:07

got to be a lot for me and with all my

42:09

other teaching responsibilities and things in my

42:11

role here at Texas Tech has

42:13

changed a little bit . You'll know , if you're

42:15

a longtime supporter of the

42:17

show or friend of the show , that

42:19

I have for many years

42:21

ran the greenhouse and horticultural gardens

42:24

on campus as well as teaching

42:26

, and I've actually hired a new greenhouse

42:28

manager to take over the day to day at the greenhouse

42:30

and gardens . I am still overseeing

42:32

there , I'm still very involved there , but

42:34

I've sort of stepped out of that role and I've

42:36

turned it over and I'm into full time

42:39

more or less teaching now . So I'm still

42:41

teaching intro horticulture but also

42:43

be teaching sustainable vegetable production

42:45

, starting in the fall , as well as some other stuff . So there's

42:47

some other content that will come from that as well

42:49

. But as part of this I'm

42:52

probably going to try to release an episode

42:54

every other week . So you know 25

42:56

episodes a year , something like that . 26

42:58

episodes a year . There may be times when

43:01

there's extra content that I put out , so it may

43:03

be closer to 30 . But through

43:05

2024 , I'm going to commit to doing

43:07

at least every other week and I've

43:09

got some really cool interviews lined up from

43:11

faculty that I work with

43:14

in viticulture and analogy , in

43:16

weed management , in communications

43:18

and other things

43:20

in the green sciences . I

43:23

have a super exciting interview

43:25

with a guest . I've been trying to get on the show for like two

43:27

years and I don't want to ruin the

43:29

surprise , but she is a top

43:32

notch climate scientist , communicator

43:34

and one of just the nicest people I

43:36

think out there . I'm talking

43:38

to someone later this week who has been working

43:41

to produce a gardening video

43:43

game and all kinds of stuff . Award

43:46

winning florists and

43:48

some of the other

43:51

folks from sort of the podcast

43:53

, the nature podcast universe , will

43:55

be popping up throughout

43:57

the next few months of plantarology

44:00

, so really good stuff coming

44:02

up . If you've been enjoying the

44:04

show , if you're just discovering the show

44:06

and you think you like what you hear , go

44:08

, drop me a rating and review wherever you can

44:10

, whether that is on pod chaser or Apple

44:12

podcasts , anywhere in between . Let

44:15

me know what you think . Again , send me an email at plantarologypod

44:17

at gmailcom , connect via

44:20

plantarology or the plant prof online

44:22

and just just be involved

44:24

. I am so grateful

44:27

to you for again engaging with the show

44:29

, for listening to the show and just

44:31

being a part of what we're doing

44:33

here at plantarology , so it's

44:36

good to be with you again . It's good to be back at

44:38

it . You know I love you . Keep being kind

44:41

. If you have not been kind to date , maybe give

44:43

that a shot . It's pretty cool . Keep being

44:45

the coolest plant people I know and

44:47

I will talk to you very , very

44:50

soon .