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Begin pod fix network transmission in

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321.

0:10

What is up, plant people? Hey,

0:12

it's time once more for the Planthropology podcast.

0:14

The show 90 the lives careers and

0:17

general awesomeness of some very cool plant

0:19

people. To figure out why they do what they

0:21

do and what keeps them coming back for

0:23

more. I'm Vikram 90. Get your host

0:25

and your humble guide in this journey through the plant

0:27

sciences and nature and other things that

0:29

are related to those things.

0:31

And as always my friends, I'm so excited to

0:33

be with you today. This

0:35

is another solo episode. I either

0:37

apologize or you're welcome. Depending on

0:39

how much you like. Hearing me

0:42

flap my mouth parts. There are

0:44

lots of really great interviews coming up

0:46

soon. I'm just trying to bank a few and schedule

0:48

them out to spring, everyone's busy.

0:50

People are busy. It's weird. Right? And

0:53

especially some of the really cool people that

0:55

I wanna talk to are 90, really busy. So we're

0:57

gonna get more interviews coming soon. We

0:59

may have one or two more solo episodes

1:01

coming up and then starting in probably

1:04

either next month or March will be

1:06

hitting it hard with some really great interviews. For

1:08

now, we're doing a q and a episode. So

1:10

90 are really a great opportunity for me

1:13

to interact with you. I get the best

1:15

questions from Discord, from

1:18

Instagram and Twitter and TikTok

1:20

and everywhere else that I love to answer

1:23

your questions. Y'all really make me do

1:25

some research and think about some really

1:27

interesting things. I enjoy learning

1:29

and I enjoy having reasons to dive

1:31

into literature that I would really

1:33

never ever really have another reason

1:35

to look into. So thanks for the great questions.

1:38

We'll be talking about everything from the

1:40

teeny, teeniest plant to tree

1:42

galls to wild and domesticated

1:44

vegetables. Some really great questions today for

1:46

some, again, really cool people. Send

1:49

me your questions. I try to keep

1:51

a running bank of these. We probably

1:53

won't do these every month and for anymore

1:56

since I'm doing every other week. Episodes

1:58

now instead of weekly episodes. But either

2:00

quarterly or every other month depending

2:03

on how many questions come in and

2:05

how much the the demand there is for this,

2:07

we'll still be doing plenty of great

2:09

q and a episodes throughout the season.

2:11

Also, if you can send me ideas for

2:13

who you think I should interview if there are

2:16

plant nature, climate,

2:18

whoever else people that you follow on social

2:20

media or that you know 90, send

2:22

them my way. I would love to reach out and

2:24

see if we could get some of people that you wanna

2:26

hear from on this show.

2:28

But for now, we're doing our January

2:30

90 Year Q and A episode.

2:33

And answering some really great questions for

2:35

some 90, really cool great people.

2:53

Alright. So I wanted to start off again by

2:55

saying that if you've got questions I can

2:57

answer, please send them me. You can either

2:59

send them on on social media. You

3:01

can join my Discord, which is

3:03

the plant process complicated house plants.

3:06

There's a link in the description of this ops episode.

3:08

You can get to it from my social media and all that. If

3:11

I want to talk, you know, I'll I'll ask for questions

3:13

90, and you can also email them to

3:15

me at Planthropology pod at gmail

3:17

dot com. And again, I would love to

3:19

answer your questions on the show.

3:22

Our first question for today comes from our old

3:24

friend, Tyler Hermann, who is at

3:26

Archduke Tyler on the

3:28

Twitter machine. So he's had

3:30

or this is actually really interesting one.

3:32

It's it's fun. And it's not something

3:34

90 had ever actually thought about before before

3:37

I got this question. So what is

3:39

the smallest plant? And how

3:41

90 is it? Well, to

3:44

start off and say it's gonna be pretty planty because

3:46

it's a plant, but I had to think about it and and I

3:48

ended up looking it up because the one that

3:50

I had in my head is not

3:52

the right answer. So the

3:54

world's smallest flowering plant.

3:56

Now when we're talking about a flowering plant here,

3:58

so an 90, which is

4:01

I would make the argument that this is probably

4:03

the smallest plant in general, called

4:07

90 Globossa, 90 Globossa.

4:10

Oftentimes, you'll see this called Asian

4:12

Water 90 or Duckweed or Mankai,

4:15

And it's native to Asia, and it grows in

4:17

still ponds. And it

4:20

looks very much like algae. And

4:22

algae, as we've talked about before,

4:24

is not a plant, but it's not

4:26

not a plant. It is a small

4:29

organism or or colony

4:31

of similarly related organisms that

4:34

are photosynthetic. And so algae,

4:36

photosynthesizes, produce oxygen, all

4:38

of the things. And if you're not looking real

4:40

closely, you may confuse

4:43

90 Globosa or 90

4:45

as algae. Now algae is

4:47

gonna have a slimier, much smoother

4:49

texture. And duckweed

4:52

is a lot like cornmeal. Like, it

4:54

has the texture and sort of the 90 of cornmeal.

4:56

So, like, if you're in a 90, very still

4:58

body of water and you see like a bright

5:00

green film just completely

5:03

covering it. Yes, it could be 90, but

5:05

there's a very good chance it's done 90 you can

5:07

grab a handful of it and see how it feels

5:09

and and it is a flowering

5:11

plant. And so it has

5:13

a single stamen

5:15

and answer. The structure is

5:17

very much like one single little

5:19

front that floats in the

5:21

water. These little dudes are

5:24

one millimeter in

5:26

diameter. That's right. One

5:28

millimeter in diameter. The widest

5:30

ones, or the biggest ones, or probably about the

5:32

size of the sprinkles that you might get on your

5:34

ice cream cone. So these are tiny

5:36

little things. But you'll get hundreds

5:39

of millions of them growing in

5:41

these colonies in stagnant

5:43

water, bayou's ponds, things

5:45

like that. And one of the reasons

5:47

it's called duck weed is because

5:49

ducks really like to eat it. It is

5:51

an important food source for not just

5:53

ducks, but also a lot

5:55

of different waterfowl and

5:58

aquatic animals. Fish

6:00

will eat it, especially Tilapia, sometimes

6:02

some species of carp

6:04

will eat it. There's a whole bunch of different ones. Right?

6:07

But lots of aquatic animals rely on

6:09

this as a food source. What's interesting is

6:11

actually does produce a fruit. It

6:13

is a fruiting flowering plant. The fruit's

6:15

called a Utricle or an Utricle,

6:18

and it's teeny tiny. I mean fractions of

6:20

a 90 in size and in

6:22

diameter. What's interesting

6:25

about this though is there's so much potential

6:27

for duct 90 to be used

6:29

in several different applications.

6:32

Because in general, it is

6:35

consumed commonly by aquatic fowl

6:38

and other wildlife.

6:41

They can also be used in the diets of

6:43

chickens, pigs, cattle, other

6:45

large land mammals, a

6:48

lot of birds that are

6:50

farmed 90. And

6:52

we put a lot of effort into, you

6:54

know, raising food for these. A lot of

6:56

the feed or grains that are grown in the

6:58

United States 90 are four

7:00

hour livestock production. So an enormous

7:02

carbon footprint, all of this. The

7:04

production of that stuff is very expensive. This

7:07

stuff just grows in still water. In ponds.

7:09

It has a 90, really high protein

7:12

content. It can be actually 90 much as

7:14

forty four percent protein by

7:16

volume. So it can be used to make

7:18

biofuels as well. And

7:20

bioplastics and a lot

7:22

of other things as well.

7:25

It's really has some potential to be

7:27

a I don't I don't like to say things like

7:29

miracle plant or like silver bullet plant, but it

7:31

can solve quite a few problems.

7:33

One other thing that's really cool. In some

7:35

of the research, it looks like

7:38

because of the structure of the

7:40

90 weed, it just kinda floats around in the water. It doesn't

7:42

have a big system, all of that.

7:44

It it propagates quickly.

7:46

I I mentioned that it does have a fruit and a

7:48

flower and all that, so 90 can propagate by

7:50

seed. But generally, it just sort

7:52

of divides. Right? Asexually propagates

7:55

from that mother front. And so

7:57

your populations expand very,

7:59

very 90. But

8:01

in that, it takes lots of

8:03

phosphates and lots of nitrogen out of the

8:05

water. Now, phosphates and nitrogen are

8:08

too common chemicals

8:10

that lead to like algal blooms and

8:12

lots of pollution in our waterways. So

8:14

there are thoughts that this could be used in

8:16

runoff water or even in sewage

8:18

water to clean it. And in

8:20

some preliminary research looking at

8:22

this, it's possible that the

8:25

toxins that are often found in

8:27

sewage sludge are filtered out.

8:29

They are sort of uncoupled and

8:31

destroyed by this tiny little plant. So

8:34

while that may not make it necessarily

8:36

safe for, like, animal consumption

8:38

or human consumption after it's

8:40

been used to treat water. It

8:42

could maybe be used to make biofuels. It

8:44

could maybe be used to create

8:47

fertilizers in different things for plants.

8:49

And so, although

8:51

it is very planty, I would say it's one

8:53

hundred percent planty if synthesizes. It

8:55

has leaves of some sort or a

8:57

fraud. It has flowers. It

8:59

reproduces. It does all the planty

9:01

things. And it's teeny

9:03

tiny. Again, a millimeter in

9:06

diameter, you should look up pictures of this. It's

9:08

it's really pretty cool. It

9:11

may be such a powerful remediation

9:13

strategy for us to clean up

9:15

waterways and to reduce our

9:17

need for grains.

9:20

And other high carbon input

9:22

crops just to feed our

9:24

livestock. And so

9:26

there is lots of research still to be done. There's a long

9:28

way to go, but it's cool. It's cool.

9:30

I love learning about new plants

9:32

that can have huge

9:34

solutions and huge impacts. On

9:36

our way of life? Our

9:38

second question for the day, which is also a

9:40

really, really good question, comes

9:42

from Finvara. Or

9:44

bengled god on Twitter.

9:46

And this was a fun one too. So this

9:48

says people have some interesting ideas

9:50

about what makes a good carbon capture plant.

9:53

From growth speed to variable climate range

9:55

to how illegal it is to grow in a given

9:57

area. Yeah. Okay. I see what you're going for

9:59

there. What are some favorite

10:01

carbon captures of yours? Possibly

10:04

overlooked examples. So this is this

10:06

is a good question for a couple

10:08

of reasons. I this is

10:10

a little bit outside of my field of research

10:12

personally. I 90 don't look a lot at carbon cap

10:15

capture but more in resource

10:17

conservation and multiple use in landscape.

10:19

That being said, I don't know that I have

10:22

specific examples of what I

10:24

think carbon capture

10:26

well because that's what

10:28

plants do. They are constantly

10:30

capturing carbon. And I think

10:32

our duct 90 that we just talked about is

10:34

is a pretty substantial one.

10:36

But for me, I think I

10:38

have favorite types of plants that

10:40

serve a lot of ecosystem services.

10:43

And and the two that come to

10:45

mind for sure are trees

10:47

in general. Right? I 90, that one's no

10:49

surprise. Like, trees grow at

10:51

different rates. They sequester carbon at

10:53

different rates based on the density of the wood,

10:55

the growth rate, the amount of water they

10:57

get, etcetera. Right? They but they they

10:59

clean a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere.

11:01

But I think in general a better

11:03

or not not better. I don't want to say better.

11:05

But another carbon

11:08

capture system that I think is really important

11:10

is 90. Or prairie

11:12

grasses 90. So

11:14

prairie grasses tend to be very deep

11:16

rooted clump grasses. So

11:18

when I say grass people think, oh, it's he's talking

11:20

aboutfestivals, Saint Augustine, the stuff

11:22

that you put in your yard

11:24

and have to mow twice a week, whether you want to

11:26

or not, whatever. That's

11:29

not necessarily what I mean. Although although

11:31

and people 90 mad me for saying this,

11:33

they do serve that ecosystem

11:35

service. And if you

11:38

manage them well, if

11:40

you are able to

11:43

reduce your water consumption in their

11:45

production. If you manage

11:47

your mowing and

11:49

cultivation practice well. Even

11:51

turf grasses can serve a lot of

11:53

ecosystem service and do a lot of

11:55

carbon capture. That's another

11:57

episode. Okay? But prairie

11:59

grasses are variable in

12:01

height. I live in a short grass prairie, so

12:03

most of them are, like, 90, twenty four

12:05

inches tall. There are prairies that have much

12:07

taller grasses. There are some that have medium

12:09

grasses, but we have sort of

12:11

anywhere from a foot, maybe at a two

12:13

feet tall grasses in our prairie land. So

12:15

90 grasses grow quickly. They're generally

12:18

annual plants that complete their entire life

12:20

cycle in a year, but they

12:22

produce so much biomass.

12:24

Right? If you look out over a prairie, there

12:27

are millions and millions of individual

12:29

plants. And all of those plants are

12:31

constantly pulling

12:33

carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere

12:35

and sequestering it in tissue.

12:37

Now, while you may look at it and be like, oh,

12:39

well, that tree has you know,

12:41

a million kilos of wood on

12:43

it. 90, that sequesters more.

12:46

Okay. Yeah. I I on an individual

12:48

basis, I I think you're probably right.

12:50

But if you look at the billions of

12:52

acres of Prairieland

12:54

all over the world, they are very

12:56

likely just as good or

12:58

better as total system at

13:00

sequestering carbon than than all the

13:02

forests in the world. One of the reasons

13:04

for that is as these organisms

13:07

die as every year the

13:09

grasses die, those leaf blades

13:11

break down very quickly and they're

13:13

metabolized very quickly and taken down

13:15

into the soil by

13:17

soil microorganisms. As they come and they feed

13:19

on it, they take that carbon down into the

13:21

soil. The roots dig these super

13:24

deep channels in the soil where water can

13:26

infiltrate and carry material down with it.

13:28

So what we see in 90 soils

13:30

is this rich 90 carbon

13:32

rich, carbon heavy soil. And

13:35

then when native megafauna,

13:38

large native animals like Bison

13:41

and and deer and antelope and other

13:43

other animals that live in

13:45

90, walk across them and churn it with

13:47

their hooves They release some of that to

13:49

the atmosphere, but that lets the next

13:51

generation grow. It

13:54

fertilizes that land as

13:56

large animals move across it. So

13:58

90 get bad wraps

14:01

sometimes because people think, oh, this prairie is

14:03

for feeding cattle. And well, yeah, maybe

14:05

it is. Maybe that prairie is defeat

14:07

cattle, but a well managed 90.

14:09

it all comes down to our influence

14:11

on these things. Is very

14:13

capable of sequestering incredible

14:15

amounts of carbon and trapping

14:17

it in the soil. And as long as

14:19

we're not deep tilling and deep breaking

14:22

that soil up, that carbon

14:24

pretty much stays put. Even

14:26

when fires burn across

14:28

these vast areas, which

14:30

is a natural part of the process.

14:33

Yes, it does release carbon into the

14:35

atmosphere. That's what happens when you

14:37

burn things, you get carbon dioxide, carbon

14:39

monoxide, water, and a few

14:41

other things. It

14:45

causes more plants to germinate. It

14:47

increases the biomass overall. It juminates

14:49

that land. And so

14:52

fire is very beneficial to these

14:54

prairie ecosystems as well. It is

14:56

a powerful tool that nature uses

14:59

and that peoples throughout time

15:01

all over the world have used to

15:03

manage the land. Well, so

15:05

Again, that's maybe not a super

15:08

detailed answer or a super like

15:10

specific answer. But I think for me,

15:12

Prairie Grasses are my favorite

15:15

carbon capture plant because

15:17

they do so much of it and they're everywhere

15:20

and if maintained, the good priorities

15:22

can absolutely save the world. Alright. Well, I

15:24

think this is a pretty good time to take a quick break

15:26

for some messages from our sponsors, which

15:28

is just me 90 more words.

15:30

And when we come back, I've got three more

15:32

questions for you. Hey

15:35

90. Welcome to the Mid Roll, my friends. I'm

15:37

glad you made it this far. Hope you

15:39

found us some interesting things in this

15:42

episode. Real quick, I wanted

15:44

to take the opportunity again to thank

15:46

you for listening and thank you for being a part of

15:49

Thanks to the Texas Tech Department of Plains

15:51

Oil Science for support and the funding and

15:53

everything that lets this podcast

15:55

happen. I could not do it without the support of our

15:57

great department chair and our team. And

15:59

everyone else that makes this

16:01

happen Thanks to the

16:03

PodFix network for letting me be a

16:05

part and hang out and be a part of the

16:07

fun. You'll check out all the great PodFix

16:09

shows And in fact, go check

16:11

out our newest member,

16:14

The Wilder 90, by my

16:16

friend Melissa, It's a great

16:18

show. It's lots of fun. And I know that

16:20

you'll really enjoy it. We're so excited to have

16:22

Melissa as part of the Pod

16:24

Fix network. Find

16:26

Plant 90 anywhere you like to get your

16:28

podcast. Find me on

16:30

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,

16:33

I am or

16:35

some variation thereof. I think I'm

16:37

90 pod on Instagram. Plantropolgy

16:40

underscore the Twitter machine 90 somebody beat

16:42

me to it, and then just 90 on

16:45

Facebook. You can also join 90 Plantropolgy

16:47

school 90 people Facebook group. I'm not

16:49

as active on Facebook anymore, but

16:51

it's still a place where you can go and hang out with

16:53

other plans of all their plans are 90 fans.

16:55

And talk about plants and stuff.

16:58

Also, go join the discord.

17:00

It is the PlantPros cool plant

17:02

people. There's a link in the description,

17:04

I think that you'll really enjoy it.

17:06

Also, a new thing that I'm a part of that I

17:08

think you would really like is called the

17:10

Forever Museum on

17:12

Discord. And it's a really interesting

17:14

sort of idea where

17:17

experts in different fields archaeology

17:19

to culinary 90 to literature and

17:22

bot need and and other things

17:24

kinda have come together to

17:26

host a space where we post

17:28

pictures and quote unquote gallery exhibits.

17:30

We do lectures every now and then in all

17:32

these different groups and people can

17:34

join for free. It's lots of fun.

17:36

It was started by some

17:38

really cool friends that I've made on TikTok

17:40

forever in 90 and a few

17:42

others. And and I think it's something that y'all

17:44

listening to this would really enjoy. It's a

17:46

place where If you've got something you're

17:48

into, some science 90 or

17:51

educational thing, that'd be a cool place for you to go

17:53

scratch that edge. So go join the

17:55

forever museum The link for that is in my

17:59

description as well. But

18:01

finally, again, just thank you for being a part

18:03

of this. You can support the show by going to

18:05

plant topology pod dot com and clicking on merch and

18:07

buying some cool merch. You can go

18:09

to buy me a coffee dot com slash

18:11

plant topology and for the price of

18:14

a coffee, you can help support the show.

18:16

But for now, I wanna play you a really

18:18

great trailer from my good friend,

18:21

Paul Chumo, and his

18:23

wonderful, a vast pirate

18:25

podcast. This

18:27

is a vast, a podcast in which

18:29

I, Paul talk about the golden age

18:31

of piracy and answer questions like, How

18:34

did pirates actually talk? Is that

18:36

pirate video game any good? What

18:38

even is a poop deck? Do

18:40

pirate TV shows and movies get

18:42

anything right? Spoiler alert?

18:44

Not really, but the truth is far

18:47

more interesting. The Avast podcast is about

18:49

pirate history, pop culture,

18:51

trivia, comedy, and maybe even a

18:53

little sprinkling of true crime once in

18:55

a while. Subscribe to Avast

18:57

wherever you get podcasts, and

18:59

remember, you have the Buckles Darn it. Don't be

19:01

afraid to swash them. Okay.

19:06

Y'all. I've got a couple more for you. So

19:08

Rebecca Dark, r Dark

19:10

on Twitter says What's the deal? 90

19:12

are the Gauls? I think that might be the worst jury

19:15

seinfeld. Impression ever

19:18

impressed, whatever. I

19:22

apologize. What's the deal with gals? What do

19:24

the insects mite's fungus do

19:26

to make plant cells grow

19:28

that way? So this is a really

19:30

interesting question. And there are sort

19:32

of multiple methods

19:34

for this to happen. Usually, they're

19:36

injecting some kind of chemical into

19:38

the plant that causes sort

19:40

of this hypertrophic growth and you

19:42

get a variety of different

19:44

kinds of goals. all look a little bit

19:46

different. Some of them look like, you know, blisters

19:49

on the leaves. Some of them look have

19:51

these weird, like, horn shapes. Some of

19:53

them are fuzzy. Some of them are like,

19:55

I'm gonna say this word and I'm gonna hate myself for

19:58

it gelatinous in

20:00

nature. That's right. Friends gelatinous.

20:03

And Sometimes they create

20:05

these big, like, round

20:07

I don't know. They almost look like cocoa puffs,

20:10

ball kind of things on the

20:12

stems. So we have leaf galls, have stem galls, we have

20:14

trunk galls, there's all of these different

20:16

kinds of structures. So again,

20:18

it's usually some kind of a

20:21

chemical reaction caused by either the

20:23

saliva or some other kind of

20:25

compound coming from these insects. And

20:27

they're doing this for a couple

20:29

of reasons. One, a lot of times when the larvae hatch,

20:31

they may be able to chew on some of

20:33

the material from the plant, either leaf

20:35

material or stem material. 90 the

20:37

parent can deposit material in the goal

20:40

as they start to develop. But a lot of

20:42

times, if you look at these 90, especially

20:44

later in the season, you'll

20:46

see this little, like, pinhole coming out

20:48

of it where the insect emerged

20:51

and crawled out or flew away

20:53

or whatever. it is a

20:55

protective strategy for the insect.

20:57

Right? Instead of just laying

20:59

your eggs on the limb,

21:02

where they're susceptible to the

21:04

environment and predation and all of

21:06

these other 90. Like, oh, no.

21:08

Let's let's lay our eggs in the leaf.

21:10

Let's lay it in the stem. And

21:12

it it's really an interesting thing. Again,

21:14

like I said, there's a wide variety

21:16

of ways that these goals present

21:18

and they look. And honestly,

21:21

for the most part, it's not harmful to the

21:23

plant. Now, yeah, it may look make

21:25

it look bad. You'll get these goll's

21:27

on 90, and on

21:29

oak twigs, and all 90 these things.

21:32

And rarely rarely you'll see some

21:34

kind of disease vectored by

21:36

a galwalk. Or some kind of other gall causing

21:38

insect. But in general, it's

21:40

just cosmetic to the

21:42

plant. So we're seeing an

21:44

interesting symbiotic relationship. We

21:46

would call this probably commensalism,

21:48

where the tree here, the Planthropology

21:51

get a lot from it, but it's not

21:53

generally harmed by the

21:56

gall forming insect. They

21:58

just grow there and then they go

22:00

away. Sometimes they can confer

22:02

some protection to the plant. So you may see some kind of symbiosis.

22:04

Where these gall forming insects as

22:06

they emerge will eat 90. For

22:10

that plant herbivores that are trying to feed on

22:12

them. So so it is really this 90, very

22:15

interesting relationship between the gall forming

22:17

insect and its host

22:21

question comes from Jay Baum, Jenny,

22:23

Japan of May on Twitter. And this is

22:25

a really good question. Can you explain

22:27

why we graphed? What does it

22:30

do? And why can we do it with

22:32

some plants and not other types of

22:34

plants? Like, trees and shrubs are the most

22:36

common things that we see grafting on. So,

22:38

multi part parts of this question, I

22:40

will start with the beginning. Why

22:42

do we graph? Why would we wanna take

22:44

part of one plant and stick it

22:46

on another plant. Well, the

22:48

the general short answer is that

22:50

we're trying to get some kind of

22:52

beneficial trait from both. So we

22:55

90, very commonly see grafting in fruit

22:57

trees, and that's probably the most common example

22:59

most people think of. So

23:02

oftentimes, when we breed

23:04

for different fruit qualities or we

23:06

select for different fruit qualities

23:08

in say apples. Apples are a good

23:10

example, but peaches all all kinds of other

23:12

fruit trees. Most commercially available

23:14

fruit trees are grafted by

23:17

the way. But when we are looking for different

23:19

fruit qualities, a lot of times

23:21

that comes at the expense of

23:23

maybe disease resistance or

23:25

drought resistance. Or

23:27

some other trait that

23:29

those roots may normally

23:31

give to the plant 90 we're not selecting for

23:33

that. We're selecting for fruit quality. So then

23:37

oftentimes when we find a plant with really

23:39

strong 90 root systems

23:41

that is sort of the height we want it to be,

23:43

that's sort of the size 90 drought

23:46

tolerance and everything else that we want it

23:48

to be very often

23:50

the fruit is maybe not

23:52

the best quality Now, this is not always

23:54

a rule. Like, there's it it it

23:57

90. But oftentimes, we'll 90, like, this plant with

23:59

this really robust root system fruits

24:01

are just okay. These tend to be more wild

24:03

type, native type plants. So

24:05

how do we get the best of both worlds?

24:07

We stick them together. Right?

24:09

We take 90 we call a rootstock, which is

24:11

the roots. And it may have different traits. It may

24:13

be disease resistant or drought resistant or

24:16

what we call dwarfing. Which

24:18

will make the plant shorter, and then we take

24:20

the top part, the fruit wood, which is

24:22

called the scion, and we stick them

24:24

together. We stick them together. So we

24:27

take maybe an m eleven rootstock, which

24:29

is don't worry about what that means. It's just a common

24:32

rootstock from an apple tree that has a really

24:34

good characteristics of

24:37

They're pretty drought tolerant. They're hardy. They're

24:39

deep rooted. They don't deal with

24:41

some of the sort of root

24:43

bacterial infections fungal.

24:45

Diseases that some of the others do,

24:47

really 90 great rootstock. It's a

24:49

semi dwarfing, I believe. So you're not gonna get thirty

24:51

foot tall 90. You may get fifteen

24:53

to twenty foot tall trees that are easier to harvest. And

24:56

then we take our oh, I

24:58

don't know. Gayla Apple, pink

25:01

lady, anything but a red delicious and

25:03

we have really good fruit quality 90

25:05

we stick them together. And then we

25:07

get the benefits of a good root

25:10

system and the benefits of a

25:12

desirable fruit. And we get

25:14

a really great tree out of it.

25:16

So that's commonly how it's used. We see

25:18

it in fruit

25:20

production, including grapes, there are a

25:22

lot of grapes that are grafted. We

25:24

have 90 disease resistant

25:26

rootstocks, and If you're not familiar,

25:28

Pierce's disease is a

25:30

common problem in

25:32

grapes. And in Texas, we see it a lot

25:34

in the hill country and farther south, have 90 up

25:37

here in our part of the state where it's

25:39

not really a thing. So we use these

25:41

viruses disease and drought

25:43

resistant rootstocks and we take whatever,

25:45

you know, cabernet sauvignon or

25:48

Merlo or whatever

25:50

type of Saion would, stick

25:52

them together, and then we have that variety of grapes

25:55

with more resistant rootstocks. So we

25:57

see them mostly in fruit and nut

25:59

production. But the question another

26:01

part of this question was, why don't we

26:03

do it with other types of plants? And

26:05

the answer is that we can than we do. There

26:07

are grafted tomatoes out there, grafted watermelons

26:10

and other cute 90. There's

26:12

all kinds of grafted

26:14

plants that we use in the market. The

26:17

problem tends to be that it's a

26:19

lot more difficult. Right?

26:21

You may be working with a hundred trees

26:23

to graft. Or a million tomato

26:25

plants. And it's a lot more

26:27

economically viable to

26:29

do seed development. In, say, tomatoes.

26:32

Right? Where we try to breed those

26:34

resistance traits that we

26:36

want into the seed stock instead of

26:38

having specific roots stocks and ions and grafting together.

26:40

But ultimately, yeah, we do it in the greenhouse. We

26:42

do it for classes. You can

26:45

easily graft pretty

26:47

much whatever you want. And

26:49

and for home experiments and just

26:51

fiddling around as long as they are

26:54

compatible, which means usually they're within the same

26:56

species, different varieties within the same

26:58

species. Rarely, you can

27:00

get away with plants in the

27:02

same genus. As long as they're fairly

27:04

closely 90. Even less

27:06

frequently, you may

27:08

be maybe in, like, one

27:10

in ten thousand, one in a

27:12

hundred thousand, get two plants that are not in the same gene that's

27:14

been in the same family to graft

27:16

together. But this accessory is so low.

27:18

We usually try 90 get as

27:20

close genetically as possible. So you want

27:22

cuttings that are the same size,

27:24

same diameter, both healthy

27:26

plants 90 as closely related as possible.

27:28

So you can you graph whatever you

27:30

want, as long as you sort of meet those

27:33

criteria and and use good technique. And there's

27:35

tons of videos out there on

27:37

how to do it. Maybe make a video from my YouTube which

27:39

is at the plant broth

27:41

about grafting one of these days. That might be

27:43

a fun sort of longer form

27:45

video to do. 90. Great question.

27:47

So so the short answer is we do it with

27:50

lots and lots of plants. It's just

27:52

maybe not as

27:54

economically viable and feasible with

27:56

with certain crops. K? So

27:59

our last question for today.

28:01

Our last question for today.

28:03

Comes from the director of the forever museum that

28:05

I talked about in the mid roll. This

28:07

is he he goes by director NPC

28:10

on there, but he's forever n

28:12

p NPC on

28:15

TikTok, really great content. You should go follow him.

28:17

He's hilarious. He says, I have

28:19

always wondered about the difference between

28:21

wild vegetables and domestic dedicated vegetables. What

28:23

does a wild broccoli look like

28:25

compared to the ones we get at the

28:27

store? Now, he has a background

28:29

in 90. And

28:32

I answered his question in the discord and

28:34

I think ruin his brain just a

28:36

little bit. So Brockley

28:39

90 is genetically

28:42

the same as things like cold 90 and

28:46

cauliflower and mustard and cabbage

28:48

and kale and anything else

28:50

that is a brassica or aacea.

28:52

So we've selected for

28:56

different traits. So lateral buds gave

28:58

us things like brussels

29:00

sprouts and flower formation

29:02

and flower buds gave us broccoli

29:05

and cauliflower hour 90 leaves gave

29:07

us things like cabbage

29:09

and kale. So way back

29:11

when someone found a goofy wild mustard

29:13

and was like, hey, I like the Scooby Wild 90, but you

29:15

know what? I bet it could be ten different vegetables.

29:18

And then started to select for

29:20

different traits. And if

29:22

you look at it, they're all

29:24

still brassica 90. All

29:26

of those plants, all of those

29:28

vegetables 90 same species. It's

29:30

just different selections and different

29:32

cultivated varieties give us

29:34

all these different vegetables. So

29:36

what we see a lot is

29:39

that when we look at domesticated vegetables,

29:41

things that we use in our industry,

29:43

in our food supplies and things like

29:45

that, we select for typically certain

29:47

things. Higher 90 content as

29:49

much as we can. Although, sometimes

29:51

we do sacrifice a little bit

29:54

volume for for for nutrient 90.

29:56

We want a bigger plant that has bigger

29:58

90. And for a while there, I think that

30:00

led to maybe 90 again,

30:02

there's conflicting data on this. I tend to air on the

30:04

side of go still get your vegetables.

30:07

They're still really good for you. But there may

30:09

have been some declines in

30:11

nutrient density in some of our plants, but

30:13

now we're just breeding it back in. So

30:15

modern plants are very nutrient dense and very good

30:17

for you. So we tend to look for

30:20

good color We tend to look for

30:22

consistent shape in different

30:24

colors that 90 like in in different

30:26

shapes. Larger leaves, good

30:28

nutrient content, Usually, size

30:30

is a big one. We look for overall

30:32

yield in the plant. So when

30:34

we look at domesticated vegetables, we're

30:37

filling typically 90 I

30:39

would call sort of a market 90, even

30:42

though early peoples that were

30:44

domesticating crops twelve thousand

30:46

years ago, ten thousand years ago, probably

30:48

don't really look at it that way. They probably

30:50

looked at it as, oh, here's a field

30:53

of maze, z m maze,

30:55

which is the corn, which has

30:57

become corn. And it

30:59

looked a lot like wheat, you know, single

31:01

tassels or a couple of different groups

31:03

of kernels or seed heads. So, oh,

31:05

these are fine. We can grind them and make flowers and things like

31:07

that. We can eat it. 90 can feed it to our animals.

31:09

But they're out there looking at their field and

31:11

they say, oh, this one has

31:13

two rows of kernels instead

31:16

of just one. Oh, we should we should

31:18

pick this one and then save

31:20

some of the seeds and plant those seeds.

31:22

Cool. Well, the next year they go out they plant that again.

31:24

It's like, oh, oh, look, more of these have

31:26

larger seed heads. And here's one with four.

31:28

Let's collect the biggest ones and take those

31:30

back and use some of them and plant

31:32

other ones. And so over time, we've

31:34

selected for traits we like. So citrus,

31:38

most citrus has two or three common

31:40

ancestors. Most of our cute carpets

31:42

have a handful of common ant ancestors.

31:44

In over thousands of

31:47

years hundreds and thousands of

31:49

generations of these plants 90 had

31:51

thousands and ten thousands of generations

31:53

of these plants. We've selected for things we

31:56

want. And now we 90 of speed up the process through

31:58

advanced techniques, whether that's

32:00

more intensive conventional breeding or

32:02

genetic modification or

32:04

anything in between, we can come up with some really

32:06

fascinating domesticated fruits and vegetables

32:09

and produce in general. That

32:11

are pretty different from the wild type. So a lot

32:13

of wild types tend to be

32:16

small, less sugar content,

32:19

and and stuff like that because they're

32:21

you know, the plants are just trying to get something

32:23

to eat it to disseminate the

32:25

seed, whereas we're like, oh, no, I want an apple

32:27

that does not taste like a

32:29

red delicious apple, went on

32:31

one of the only one of those words is true. Right?

32:33

So we come up with new varieties of apples.

32:37

So, yeah, really good question. There is a big

32:39

difference between wild vegetables and

32:41

domesticated vegetables. Does that mean that wild vegetables

32:43

are bad? No. No. And there's lots

32:45

of peoples across the world that's still harvest

32:47

and use wild vegetables. And

32:51

but in the industry, we tend

32:53

to see much larger, more nitty gritty

32:55

dance, sweeter foods

32:58

that that we tend to eat and

33:00

buy and all of those things.

33:03

So really good questions y'all?

33:05

Really good. I I had fun with that

33:07

one. I am so happy to be

33:09

back doing the show. It brings me all the joy

33:11

in the world. But yeah, go

33:13

go join the plant process complicated

33:15

house plants Discord. Go join

33:17

the forever museum because there's lots and lots

33:19

of fun. I think you'll you'll

33:21

really enjoy it. Again, thank you

33:23

so much for listening to the show. Thank you for being

33:25

a part of it. You know, I do

33:27

this because I want I'm passionate about

33:29

the subject and two because it means something to

33:31

90, that it means something

33:33

to you. And all of

33:35

the kind words comments and DMs and

33:37

stuff I get on social 90. I cannot

33:40

tell you how much that means to me. So if you're

33:42

willing, go leave me a rating and review on

33:44

pod chaser, Apple Podcast.

33:46

Drop a rating on Spotify if you're listening there. Anywhere

33:48

else you can review the show that means the world.

33:50

Send me your thoughts and comments at

33:52

plant pathology pod at gmail

33:55

dot com. I love to

33:57

tackle things that that you want to

33:59

hear. But y'all, thank you

34:01

so much for listening. Thank you so much for being a

34:03

part of this. I hope you'll get some high

34:05

high rating good knowledge from Paul

34:07

and the advanced podcast. You know, I love

34:09

you lots. You know, I love doing

34:11

this for you. 90

34:14

being cool plant 90, keep being kind

34:16

to one another. If you have not been kind to one

34:18

another at this point, maybe give 90 a shot.

34:21

But be kind, be safe, be

34:23

good, and I will talk to

34:25

you in two weeks. You've

34:47

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34:50

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