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Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

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Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lingwood site is class 5 because it's in some guy's garden and surrounded by trees/hedges that block airflow. Class 5 sites have +/- 5 degrees of uncertainty and shouldn't be used for climatology under any circumstances. As to the runway point you're being sarcastic about - yes, that can happen. The UK set a record temperature in July 2022, which the BBC reports was set at Coningsby in Lincolnshire: https://www.b…

OK, got you. Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway or in heat islands (which we definitely haven't had for decades) or in someone's garden, whereas all the historical benchmarks exceeded were flawless. The UK recording a temperature of over 40 celsius was actually an anomaly because of the first time a jet ever landed at a British airport. Also the lack of rain wa…

You're using the dishonest argument technique of strawmanning. The claim you're sarcastically criticizing is not one that he made. It's one you created yourself just so you could ridicule it. You did this before too with your statement about the Lingwood temperature being due to weather stations at runways. I think what's happened is you've sensed a faint ghost of heresy and were so offended that you neglected to think rationally because fighting your perceived enemies is more important to you than knowledge or understanding.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#92
post #78

I have a paw paw tree that has survived 7 years in northern Wisconsin. Unfortunately it is the only one out of five that I planted that has survived and so I'll never get fruit because they reproduce sexually and as far as I know the closest one is 4 hours south in Madison.

Pawpaws are actually hermaphroditic not dioecious. Your tree produces female flowers first and later in the year produces male flowers. This is to prevent self-pollination. However, you can save some male pollen until next year. Alternatively, you could graft the branch of a pawpaw that flowers earlier to try and get the male and female flowers maturing at the same time. You might also be able to just buy some pollen…

> Your tree produces female flowers first and later in the year produces male flowers. This is to prevent self-pollination

How does this work in practice? Do other trees from the same species produce male flowers first, and then female? Logically, if all trees produce female flowers in spring and male flowers in the summer then the species can only survive if the seeds can remain viable unfertilized for months (which is probably not that exceptional for plants, I wouldn't know). But if the female seeds are still viable by the time the plant sprouts its male flowers, exactly how does this prevent self-pollination?

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#93
post #82
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We grow bananas at our farm in India and we have never seen this spider ever.

Brazilian wandering spiders are rarely found outside of northern South America.

Maybe they're better named Brazilian Staying-Put Spiders then

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, got you. Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway or in heat islands (which we definitely haven't had for decades) or in someone's garden, whereas all the historical benchmarks exceeded were flawless. The UK recording a temperature of over 40 celsius was actually an anomaly because of the first time a jet ever landed at a British airport. Also the lack of rain wa…

You're using the dishonest argument technique of strawmanning. The claim you're sarcastically criticizing is not one that he made. It's one you created yourself just so you could ridicule it. You did this before too with your statement about the Lingwood temperature being due to weather stations at runways. I think what's happened is you've sensed a faint ghost of heresy and were so offended that you neglected to thi…

I didn't create the claim "almost all the records are being set at weather stations that can't measure change in the climate due to urban corruption or being sited at runways", the OP did. When we've had June records for days without rain, duration above temperature thresholds and peak temperatures in rural areas just last month it's.... kind of impossible not to sneer at the insinuation that "almost all" such records are artefacts of insufficient quality monitoring sites.

It was also insinuated that the temperature range here on this day[1] in 2022 wouldn't be abnormal in a country which had previously never experienced more than 38.7 degrees if it wasn't for the jets landing at 3:10 ish which a climate sceptic blog was excited enough to file a FOIA request to find. I don't think the person "neglecting to think rationally" is the one highlighting the absurdity of suggesting the real reason an air base recorded its highest ever temperature was routine landings of aircraft based there...

I think what's happened is you're so determined to defend arguments which are indefensible - whether it's because you don't like the sarcasm or because you actually sympathise with the idea that global warming is just data corruption - you've resorted even to suggesting that even citing counterexamples like Lingwood is an illegitimate approach to debating pseudoscience...

[1]https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/9c47b6b2-9d1...

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#95
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, got you. Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway or in heat islands (which we definitely haven't had for decades) or in someone's garden, whereas all the historical benchmarks exceeded were flawless. The UK recording a temperature of over 40 celsius was actually an anomaly because of the first time a jet ever landed at a British airport. Also the lack of rain wa…

> Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway I'm not saying he's right but we had here one of the highest temperatures recorded in France these days (not the highest, but we did reach a bit more than 42°C) and there's a runway just a kilometre away or so. QED. It's used approximately twice a week by Cessnas, but probably on this day the plane had directed its exhaust o…

You dropped your /s

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#96
post #92
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pawpaws are actually hermaphroditic not dioecious. Your tree produces female flowers first and later in the year produces male flowers. This is to prevent self-pollination. However, you can save some male pollen until next year. Alternatively, you could graft the branch of a pawpaw that flowers earlier to try and get the male and female flowers maturing at the same time. You might also be able to just buy some pollen…

> Your tree produces female flowers first and later in the year produces male flowers. This is to prevent self-pollination How does this work in practice? Do other trees from the same species produce male flowers first, and then female? Logically, if all trees produce female flowers in spring and male flowers in the summer then the species can only survive if the seeds can remain viable unfertilized for months (which…

Actually I just looked it up and they're more bizarre than I thought. They are actually "protogynous". Meaning all flowers start off as female and as they mature they turn male.

I should've just said "later" instead of "later in the year"

I'm not sure how long pollen stays viable in the environment. Some species can stay viable for many weeks but most are just a few days I think. They can stay viable for years if refrigerated properly however.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#97
post #86
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pawpaws are actually hermaphroditic not dioecious. Your tree produces female flowers first and later in the year produces male flowers. This is to prevent self-pollination. However, you can save some male pollen until next year. Alternatively, you could graft the branch of a pawpaw that flowers earlier to try and get the male and female flowers maturing at the same time. You might also be able to just buy some pollen…

Wait would that work? My understanding was that the pollen had to come from a different genome of pawpaw for it to work... But perhaps I'm mistaken?

Hmm I guess you're right. Most cultivars seem to be self-incompatible. Like most self-incompatible plants though, it's not 100%. Some cultivars like "Sunflower" don't seem to mind at all

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#98
post #19

Seems like an opportunity to plug the latest video by my favorite YouTube long form documentary maker, OTR: The History of the Banana https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea. If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite e…

If you like this long format style of video, you might enjoy Asianometry, "video essays on business, economics, and history." [0] Here is a video on the banana also, "The Wildly Infectious Banana Plague." [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OsiD_s00RQ

I'll second this. I'm continually impressed with the breadth of coverage from Asianometry. Great channel.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#99
post #74
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite is the history of chili pepper. It's something so fundamental to indian cuisine that I assumed chillies were native to India for a long time. His video shows the true history of how that spice travelled from the Americas to all over the globe

Potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkins/zucchinis/most squashes, cassava, the common bean (including pinto, black, kidney, etc), cassava, sunflowers, avocado, etc all didn't exist in European kitchens until the 1500s (and not really widespread until at least the 1600s). Also, most of these crops were specifically domesticated in the Andes. If you go to the Andes today you can still find tradi…

Coffee is another interesting example in the other direction, it's so often associated with places like Colombia, Java, etc that people don't realize it's only native to Ethiopia, and that the majority of coffee consumed around the world today descends from one specific genetic lineage that was cultivated for a few centuries in Yemen.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#100
post #77
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read Charles C. Mann's book "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created"? It's all about the global impact of the opening of the New World by the Europeans, and how the global exchange created and is creating the "homogenocene", the age of homogeneity. There's a part about a folk song in the Philippines that lovingly goes over the crops being grown around a village. They're all introduced.

It really transformed Europe too. Europe's basically a story of famine after famine until they got access to the potato. I don't know if any other technology has saved as many European lives as the potato Pacific island cultures are a bit unique in their relationship to the New World though. Chickens which come from SE Asian jungles have been in South America since at least 1300 AD. And sweet potatoes were grown in P…

1300 AD?! Did the Polynesians bring chickens with them? I knew about the sweet potatoes, but the chickens are a whole different manner.
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