Had fun sharing some plant knowledge yesterday, would love to share more!

  • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
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    1 year ago

    The mass of a tree is primarily carbon, and comes from the splitting of CO2 into O2 and C by way of photosynthesis.

    • Dolores [love/loves]
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      1 year ago

      posting the carbon must come from the water, so water is made of coal??? stalin-stressed i must inform the king!

      okay but non-joke question: what the hell is a nitrogen cycle and how does it work in practice like in your garden

      • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
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        1 year ago

        Here's a nitrogen cycle diagram. It's not dissimilar to things like the water cycle or food chain cycle.

        Show

        Practically speaking, you want to occasionally plant nitrogen fixing plants in your garden, as other plants will remove it from the soil. Lots of people will put tons of fertilizer into their garden, and that seeks to achieve similar goals.

        • Dolores [love/loves]
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          1 year ago

          scared how can there be plants that leech & plants that fix nitrogen? if they all need nitrogen, that is. do they all need nitrogen?

          • fox [comrade/them]
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            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Some plants slurp nitrogen out of the air. This is inefficient since atmospheric nitrogen is M2, which is quite stable and happy to stay that way. Takes a lot of energy to break that bond.

            Other plants create microbial biomes in their root systems that fix nitrogen for them in forms that are easier to absorb, like ammonium and nitrate, which are much cheaper to use. The plant gets bioavailable nitrogen for cheap, the soil gets leftover fixed nitrogen, and the bacteria get a home. In a healthy ecosystem other plants can crib off the leftover nitrogen and provide benefits of their own, like fixing topsoil or creating biomes for fungi to recycle dead matter back into useful nutrients.

          • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
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            1 year ago

            The sky is full of nitrogen, some of them can grab it from there and others take it from the ground. I'm not a plant scientist, so I don't really know all the details

            • Junomint [any, she/her]
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              1 year ago

              The pea family is notorious for this, this is part of why I throw clover all over anytime I turn dirt in the yard