Trivia Hoedown #9 September 29, 2007

The new term has begun, so we have a bountiful, if ever so slightly dry, hoedown this week.

1. Right now aphids are giving birth to the only males of the year. The males will mate with females and lay the eggs that will overwinter and emerge next Spring. Up until this point in the year, all the aphids that were chowing down on your plants were female and most of them were clones. A female aphid that you meet in July is pregnant with her clonal daughters, who, inside their mother’s body, are pregnant with her clonal granddaughters. Aphids give live birth up until the end of the season when they lay next year’s eggs.

2. Gorse, a spiny and now noxious introduction from Ireland, burns so hot because of its volatile oils that a fire that started on the coast of Oregon in 1936 nearly burned the town of Bandon to the ground. The fire could not be put out with water, and 1,800 homes were destroyed and 10 people killed.

3. I went to see a private garden yesterday that is 4 acres managed with no pesticides and only organic fertilizers. Not only can it be done, it was beautiful and is due to be featured in Sunset Western in the coming months. (More on this property later.)

4. I’m discovering this week that the differences between many maple species are so subtle, it’s tempting to try to identify every single one on campus before the midterm. That way, no matter where the Bataan Death March of Plant ID stops along the course, I’ll know the tree. It’s probably not going to happen.

5. To most of my readers, this will not be news: when you turn or clear an area for new planting or construction, you bring all the dormant weed seeds to the surface. That’s the reason for the sudden explosion of weeds, many of which you haven’t seen nearby recently, or ever. It’s like Christmas for weeds.

6. Buggy outreach, where you set up a booth with your beasties and encourage passersby to hold them, is delightful. There’s nothing like getting up one’s nerve to hold the big cockroach and then having it scramble up your arm and across your neck. The kid in question was surrounded by friends, so he was under extreme pressure to be cool and he was very courageous as I reached down his collar to retrieve his visitor. The random screaming and willies of other visitors to the booth were equally enjoyable. No little girl, you cannot hold the black widow.

7. Crane flies don’t eat mosquitoes, but yeah, it would be neat if they did.

8. New neighbors moved in recently and brought a mean case of Chainsaw Disease to their stand of 40′ poplars. It’s filled the street with resentment, but also anticipation for next summer. The trees were on the southwest side of the house and the new neighbor has no idea how hot our little hill gets in the summer. May you bake clean through in your house, lady.

9. I saw an Assassin Bug skating across the surface of a horizontal spider web yesterday. He wasn’t entangled, he was just cruising over it. It was during a walking lecture, so I couldn’t investigate fully – but it gave me pause.

10. When I’ve finished all 35 of the samples and you decide we need a larger sample, so we’ll do another 35, just give me a second to check my tears and ennui.

11. Remotes that you use in class to respond to lecture questions posed by the professor are about the dumbest things ever.

Trivia Hoedown #8 August 30, 2007

1. In Darwin’s time, bumble bees were called humble bees. (Yes, I am reading journal articles from the 1800s – crazy.)

2. When you are gleaning seed and separating it from the chaff by hand in order to count each seed, you must breathe very gently and preferably direct your breath away from the dish you are working on or your seeds will be jettisoned to distant planes. And you will curse.

3. It takes about 6 hours for a brand spanking new exoskeleton to harden on a freshly molted Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. They are extra hissy during these 6 hours.

4. In 1910 in the UK, for a variety of reasons, the native honeybee population plummeted to just 10% of its previous numbers. It’s happened again there and other places over the years, and generally, they rebound.

5. The nectaries that many flowers have at the base of the corolla are partially refilled by atmospheric dew. Whether or not a particular pollinator can feed on the nectar depends on how far the nectar level rises within the flower. The morphology of the flower and the length of the pollinator’s tongue as well as its body and leg structures determine if the nectar will be available to that insect.

6. A honeybee with a full load of pollen carries upwards of 200,000 pollen grains. Some literature puts the number at over 300,000 grains.

7. Something as similar as different species of clover can be completely different reproductively. Pollen behaves differently, seed set is different, inflorescences bear little resemblance to one another. Trippy.

8. 95% ETOH will find its way into the tiniest wound on your skin and burn like the dickens. Then, just as you near screaming aloud, it evaporates and is gone.

Trivia Hoedown #7 July 14, 2007

1. Plants that are drought tolerant in the landscape can be extremely wilty in containers, so much so that they’re difficult to keep alive during the hot months.

2. The distribution map for Phytophthora ramorum bears a striking resemblance to the distribution map for marijuana cultivation on the west coast.

3. When a one-gallon plant costs upwards of $15, that’s usually because a royalty to the breeder or person who discovered the plant is being passed on. It can run as high at $3.00 per plant sold, which adds up when one nursery produces 2,000 of them at one location, and they’re being produced all over the country.

4. Processed manure or compost at that friable, good smelling stage is called “cake”. Mmmmm.

5. If you buy a plant and put it in your landscape with all the right conditions and it lives but doesn’t grow, it has likely been treated with plant growth regulators to keep its compact shape. Some PGRs can take nearly a year to fully metabolize out of the plant.

6. I wish I could tell you about the amazing machinery Famous Wholesale Nursery has invented and fabricated to do various jobs around the nursery. But they are so secretive about them, they are stored and parked in hidden spots and never left in the field when visitors come. So I cannot. Trust me, they’re awe inspiring.

7. I am low on trivia this week, but high on bruises (7), weird chafing injuries (2), broken toes (1), and cuts (14).

Trivia Hoedown # 6 July 1, 2007

Let’s hoedown!

1. Japanese Wisteria and Chinese Wisteria twine in opposite directions: Japanese goes clockwise and Chinese counter-clockwise.

2. To stratify seeds that need cold treatment before germinating: place them in moist Perlite in a loosely tied plastic bag and place in the refrigerator. Towards the end of the stratification period, check them frequently because some species will germinate readily cold/moist conditions.

3. Juvenility in plants is often manifested in thorns and retention of leaves in the fall. In Pin Oak (Quercus palustris), you can see areas of relative juvenility by observing where the leaves are retained over the winter. This is helpful when taking cuttings or initiating tissue cultures.

4. Have we already had the peaches-nectarines conversation? Nectarines = hairless nectarines. Exact same fruit. Really.

5. Phytophthora ramorum, the pathogen responsible for Sudden Oak Death, was first noticed to affect Tan Oak in California in the mid-1990s (Lithocarpus densiflorus). Because this tree was thought of as a weed species, no one was excited about it, and it hadn’t yet been identified or described. Then the trees on George Lucas’ property began to die, and the rest…is history. The pathogen was identified at UC Berkeley, and the nursery industry and USDA have undertaken intensive efforts to eliminate it from nursery stock and particularly interstate shipments.

6. An interesting way to inoculate substrate with predatory nematodes is with the use of infected cadavers. While availability is currently very limited, it introduces a large number of already-feeding nematodes. And I like the idea of dead things in my plants on purpose.

7. Bloody cranesbill is named for the red sap that wounded roots exude and the beaked seed case that spirals and “pops” to jettison the ripe seeds.

8. You can make exceptional ice cream by using liquid nitrogen to flash freeze your frozen concoction. The nitrogen boils off quickly leaving the tiniest ice crystals and sinfully smooth ice cream.

9. I get asked about this often: people who have degrees in horticulture do not also need the Master Gardener designation. I’m going to leave it at that, but please note, I am smiling wryly.

10. The buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) has a favorite color: violet.

11. The relative size of blueberries is a function of the number of times each flower was pollinated. Larger blueberries = more visits from bees and more pollen deposited on the stigma of the flower. Blueberries can have as many as 40 seeds per fruit.

12. Nuts, coconut milk and the like are all referred to as endosperm, and most endosperm is triploid, having one set of chromosomes from the female gamete and two from the male gamete. This comes about from double fertilization which is a derived character of angiosperms, the flowering plants. Unlike gymnosperms, angiosperms make an investment in their offspring early in the process of creating embryos. Conifers and other gymnosperms don’t make the endosperm food source for their embryos until fertilization is complete and the ovate cones begin to grow. I think this means the gymnosperms are pessimists.

13. It’s probably an old wives’ tale, but it works for me: to avoid being stung when you’re in an area where there are a lot of bees foraging, don’t breath through your mouth and don’t wear leather watchbands or belts. I’ve only ever been stung when I accidentally crushed a bee, and I’m against mouth breathing as a matter of principle anyway.

14.  When a plant is genetically engineered with a gene from another plant that lends resistance or some other characteristic, it may also take on the allergenic properties of the donor plant.  So, if legume genes are used to modify another food crop, peanut allergic people could be in real danger.  Hopefully this possibility will be addressed when products like this enter the marketplace.

15.  Green Day has done an excellent cover of Working Class Hero, which I have designated this summer’s theme music for agricultural workers.

Trivia Hoedown #5 June 23, 2007

It’ll be hard to share trivia with you without telling you Famous Wholesale Nursery’s secrets, but I’m going to give it a shot.

1. I pruned 630 five-gallon boxwoods. Did you hear me? 630. By hand. With heavy tijeras grandes. In the hot sun. For eight hours. I rule.

2. If you are the kind of person who can’t pee in a port-a-potty, or can pee but only if a stable hover can be accomplished, you just haven’t been in the right situation to consummate your relationship with the outhouse. When you’re finally tired enough that you’ll sit down damn near anywhere – nay, you will lie on the gravel road to rest your back for a moment – it is then that you will happily sit on the port-a-potty seat and not give splash-up a second thought.

3. Incidentally, I suspect that careful splash physics calculations have been worked in an effort to ensure that you don’t leave the potty with a chemical blue stain on your hiney. I want to meet the people who did those calculations, and I want to discuss the assumptions and variables therein.

4. If you haven’t ridden in the back of a pick up truck recently, it’s hellafun.

5. Hard labor and little sleep have beaten me into a sweet state of reasonableness and giddiness. If you want something from me, now’s the time to ask.

6. One of the most common ways to die in an agriculture setting is drowning in the irrigation pond.

7.  Conifers can take 8-13 years in the production cycle – from propagation to ready for sale – the reason for their often high prices.

8.  By the time plants leave the wholesale nursery bound for retail stores, wholesalers, and landscapers, the cost to produce them is known to the penny.  They have been handled and worked on a minimum of 15 times, not including feeding, spraying or irrigation.

9.  The margin for perennials, shrubs, and trees is a lot smaller than I thought:  somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-25%.

10.  It’s amazing how hideous plants look at various points in the production cycle.  I’ve only been acquainted with this company’s plants on the retail end, and they came out of the truck looking practically extruded they were so perfect and unblemished.  In the field, they often look utterly dreadful.  There’s a lot of primping and fussing in the last few weeks before they are shipped.

11.  Labor that includes stooping, bending over, and lifting hurts really bad after the first 30 minutes or so.  It’s bad for about an hour, then it comes and goes.  If you can get through the periods of abject misery, they become fewer and farther between and suddenly, you’re in the zone.   Ridiculously, it feels like an accomplishment.

12.  Listen up heat sensitive folks.  It’s counter-intuitive, but being completely covered lowers your temperature considerably.  Long pants, a wide brimmed hat, and a light colored, long sleeved shirt over a thin t-shirt are salva vidas.  You’ll still need sunscreen and plenty of water, but the coverage helps immensely.

13.  Before straining your back and working harder than you thought possible, stock up on frozen vegetables and apply them to said body part the instant you arrive home.  Take analgesics preemptively.

14.  I’ve never been more convinced that graduate school is in my future.

Trivia Hoedown #4 May 29, 2007

1. The smell of rich soil – that delicious smell reminiscent of gardening and fresh mulch and recent rain – is courtesy of Actinomycetes, a filamentous gram-positive bacteria. It’s usually treated like a fungus in study because it acts like one, forming hyphae and breaking down organic matter in soils.

Actinomycetes in Soil

2. It is possible for a dead wasp to sting you. Repeatedly. Don’t touch the pointy part; alternately, stop touching the pointy part after the first time.

3. Red Osier Dogwood, Cornus sericea, looks an awful lot like a Viburnum. It’s not though, and don’t let your botany TA tell you that it is.

4. The bulk of agricultural pests are in one of five orders of insects: Hemiptera (true bugs), Homoptera (leafhoppers, aphids, scales), Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths, or rather, their larvae), and Diptera (flies). The bulk of beneficials are in Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, and bees) and again, Coleoptera.

5. Several important (meaning here “significant”) agricultural pests experience an increase in proliferation in the presence of an overabundance of nitrogen. You don’t want to overfeed because it’s expensive and wasteful, but it also kicks some insects’ reproduction cycles into high gear. Plants that are overfed are also more susceptible to disease and live in a constant state of low grade stress, meaning dwarfed growth in the longterm and smaller yields (fewer flowers).

6. Speaking of reproductive cycles, here in the PNW the temps are projected to be above 80 every day this week. Warmer weather also shortens reproductive cycles. More bugs in half the time! Rose gardeners, gird yourselves.

7. Another reason to abandon overhead watering of plants: only 30% of the water reaches the soil in container plants.

8. Every mature Cryptomeria I have ever met had a distinct lean. Planted alone, it leaned toward the sun; planted against structures, it usually leaned away from the structure. I’ve just discovered that the reason for this is that Cryptomeria are very sensitive to reflected light; reflected light means nearby competition, so the trees lean away to try to intercept light on as much of their surface area as possible. Likewise in full sun, they situate themselves to get as much of the light as possible.

9. It is possible to isolate bacteria and fungus from a 95% solution of EtOH. Don’t rely on it for sterilzation, unless you’re following up with a trip through the burner.

10. Roosevelt Elk carcasses are an excellent source of carrion beetles for your entomology collection, as you might imagine.

11. The smell of said carcass will be with you for hours. Longer, if you keep mistaking the rancid stench of those hoof treats you gave the dogs for the rancid stench of elk hooves when you foolishly wandered downwind.

12. It’s true: nothing is wasted in nature.

13. When peeing out of doors, the sound of your pee making contact with the underbrush is a critical component of ensuring that you are not peeing on the cuff of your pants.

14. Your closed car, parked in the sun, makes an excellent dryer for your field press. The smells that greet you when you open the door are nothing to worry about.

15. Mosquitos love to bite you where it’s least appropriate to scratch in public.

16. Word of the week: Ichneumonidae.
a) That’s a beautiful Ichneumonidae specimen, 10 points for perfect curation.
b) Ichneumonidae! I can’t believe you eat haggis!

Trivia Hoedown #3 May 18, 2007

1. Insects that congregate together to feed or sleep or just hang out are termed ‘gregarious.’

2. Domesticated honey bees cannot pollinate alfalfa because the keel of the alfalfa flower pops up and hits the bee in the subesophageal ganglion, rendering it either trapped in the flower or very cranky or both.

3. Volumes of EtOH and water are not additive – 50 mL of EtOH and 50 mL of H2O do not equal 100 mL, but a little less: around 97-98 mL.

4. It’s never a good idea to give a landscape design client the original, solitary copy of their new landscape plan. This isn’t trivia so much as it is common sense. You would think.

5. The dreaded female Ginkgo tree: those stank bombs are not fruit, they are the seedcoat and seed. Ginkgo do not bear fruit.

6. Forensic entomology As Seen on TV is a truism. The ability to determine approximate time of death based on the date of insect oviposition relies on a biofix: a first date when the adult insect is present. The remainder of the sleuthing is done with degree days by adding up the cumulative degrees above a threshold over a period of days. With a biofix and temperature data, you can easily determine when insect eggs were laid and when they should hatch.
7. An orchard without apples represents an absence of Malus. I love pome humor.

8. If you’re looking for a good container mix that will drain well, act as a pH buffer, hold nutrients efficiently, and let plants’ roots breath, you can’t do a whole lot better than plain old Doug fir bark.

9. The difference between a bee and a wasp? Hairy eyes. Bees have fuzzy ommatidia.

10. Word of the week: equilibrate (v). Which sentence best represents:

a.) Let the solution spin down and equilibrate before you pour the plates; or
b.) I got a D on the midterm but have a solid B in lab, so I’m hoping it will all equilibrate.

Trivia Hoedown #2 May 3, 2007

This week is less of a hoedown and more of a little soft-shoe.

1. Putting gravel or broken pottery at the bottom of a container before you put in the soil and plant does not improve drainage. What it does do is raise the perched water table in the pot, making more of the container volume saturated and anaerobic. If you’ve been putting things in the bottom of your pots to keep out insects, use screen instead. If you’ve been doing it to improve drainage, stop it.

2. Turkey’s Law: if you skip class, you’re sure to cross paths with the professor within 4 hours.

3. Pipettes vary by volume and dialing “5″ on the 200 microliter pipette delivers 50 microliters of solution, while dialing “5″ on the 20 microliter pipette delivers the expected 5 microliters. When your contamination indexes grow nothing after 24 hours and more of nothing 24 hours after that, it’s entirely possible that you pipetted 50 microliters of Rifampicin onto your agar and not the proscribed 5, thereby snuffing out any bacteria that dared try to colonize. Really clean petri dishes after you’ve smeared and incubated them are super embarrassing. In other news, Rifampicin is a pretty broad spectrum concoction.

4. When you splash said Rifampicin onto your hands while opening the aliquot and then note that it was put into solution with DMSO, you can rest assured that have just mainlined plant antibiotics.

5. The best Blattodea collection site is in the bathroom right outside entomology lecture hall.

6. Phrase of the week: phenotypic plasticity. Which sentence is correct?

• The more deeply lobed leaves of Acer macrophyllum in warmer climates are an example of phenotypic plasticity.
• Does everyone in your family have a hunchback and hairy moles, or is that just phenotypic plasticity?

Trivia Hoedown #1 April 4, 2007

1. Plants that have waxy leaves are usually evergreen – think Ligustrum, Ilex, Rhaphiolepis. It costs the plant a lot of resources and energy to produce wax, so it sure isn’t going to do that every year.

2. After applying insecticide and suppressing the population of a pest insect, you can count on a population explosion of said pest one generation after the pesticide wears off, let’s say in four weeks’ time.

3. One way to know for sure that your fruit/rice/vegetables are organic and have not been treated with pesiticides is the presence of blemishes or the actual pest itself. See a worm in your apple? Discard him and eat up.

4. The fruit fly life cycle includes 25 generations per year. Assuming each generation is 50:50 males to females and each female lays about 100 eggs, that’s 1.192 x 10 to the power of 14 in one year.

5. One in every five animals is a beetle.

6. The leaders in gross nursery sales by state: #1 California; #2 Florida; #3 Oregon.

7. Ever notice how mantids emerge from their egg case over a period of days? Mom lays the eggs in three parallel lines that “hatch” every few days. This is because out of every clutch within the egg case, one mantid will camp on the case itself and cannibalize his emerging siblings.

8. Plant blindness is the inability to see plants in one’s own environment. There are several hypotheses for why this might be so:

• Plants don’t provide many visual cues, particularly when they’re not in flower
• They don’t move in a time scale we can appreciate
• Incidental contact with them is unlikely to injure us, which is not true of say, a tiger
• Because plants grow together, we are less able to appreciate them as individuals
• Plants are viewed as background or context for animal life
• We’re just less familiar with them, and we notice what we already know

For the full writeup on plant blindness, The Botanical Society of America’s Spring 2001 Newsletter, Plant Science in PDF, here.

9. Plants may not move in a time scale most of us will appreciate, but Roger Hangarter’s Plants in Motion website (Indiana University) has some amazing phytokinetic works, here. No, really – it’s time lapse video segments, and it’s enough to make you squeal. If you’re into that kind of thing.

10. Dogs really like to chase butterfly nets.

11. Favorite word this week: thigmonasty. Correct context?

A. Thigmonasty is at work in the morning glory, helping it to twine around a support as it receives environmental and tactile information.

B. Get that dog off the couch! He’s totally thigmonasty.