plants are very brave, both metaphorically and physically.
Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
101–110 of 134 posts
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#102> These vessels have evolved intricate adaptations that can maintain the water in liquid form, even under the extreme low pressures
This sentence undersells the phenomenon quite a bit: the “extreme low pressure” is in fact several bars of negative pressure and the challenge of maintaining water in liquid form is avoiding cavitation.
I was exposed to the physics of trees though the entrance exam to École Polytechnique (France's best University) and it's been carved in my mind since then: http://alainrobichon.free.fr/Concours/X_PC_PH1_01.pdf
AFAIK students are still being given this masterpiece for practice even though it's now 25 years old.
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are obviously other factors limiting tree growth, like compressive strength.
Which would also serve as reasonable challenges for genetic and molecularbiological engineering so ... what's your point? Or do you mean to suggest that the failure of any accepted tree height records to surpass the maximum capillary distance can be explained by some other factor? (Based on your other comment it seems safe to assume that isn't what you meant but anyhow.) That seems far too convenient given that the o…
I was referring to your "500m trees" which would be over 3x taller than the tallest trees ever seen.
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are obviously other factors limiting tree growth, like compressive strength.
I seem to recall for some long-ago course that the 8,000m peaks are up around the compresssive limit so yoou couldn't really have a taller mountain.
In theory you can always have taller mountains if you just have a (exponentially!) wider base. But given all sorts of practical constraints, Earth mountains are pretty much limited to <10 km.
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm studying for a bachelor's degree in horticulture part-time through a distance-learning university. If you're more interested in growing plants, I'd say horticulture is a better fit than botany. If you're more interested in understanding how plants work, botany is probably the better choice. That said, you'll still learn a lot of botany in a horticulture degree as well obviously
Thank you sir. I actually got my CS from distance learning and somehow the combination of growing things and monitoring everything using CS just grabs me. I would work on any farm anywhere with appropriate agency.
this is low key one of the few things that I think of doing for the rest of my life, though my bias is towards seaweed farming and related ecosystems
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#106I grow marijuana and chillies from time to time. I got good at it. I will say that plants are malleable in untold ways and so I find this article to be unsurprising. Plants will do what they need to do in the end. I've done stuff like co2 bombing, and increasing nutrients to the point to where I get a whole new ecosystem of insects and an entirely new situation. It is such fascinating stuff that it's actually the lif…
I'm studying for a bachelor's degree in horticulture part-time through a distance-learning university. If you're more interested in growing plants, I'd say horticulture is a better fit than botany. If you're more interested in understanding how plants work, botany is probably the better choice. That said, you'll still learn a lot of botany in a horticulture degree as well obviously
Botany comprises all, but most people see it as a synonym of plant classification.
Horticulture is about growing plants and multiplying it, often with flower power overtones and moon myths that vastly underestimate its importance.
Veganism is often mistaken as a synonym of "botany loving people", but is just a religious movement started by a priest, and centered around the random ideas that:
1) Plants occupy a lower rank of importance among life beings because they lack a single particular type of sensor that only the cool animals have, and...
2) Plants are safe to eat, because they were designed by god for us
None of those ideas are validated by real facts. As people grows in the cozy comfort of their religious group they lose the capability to see the whole picture and turn into food zombies that move and hate just by inertia. You can show science here for weeks and weeks without finding a sign of intelligent life.
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Many people stop here and will never heard about:
Geobotany. Be afraid, very afraid. This is what a cabal of Da Vincy code linguists would do in the dark to bring pain to the world.
Most people will be put off by it in seconds, by the strange words and tedious lists, but there is an unexpected reward at the end when all pieces fall in place. You will never see the wildlife in the same way.
And plant physiology, that is like a really good sci-fi book.
Very complicated, defiant, dealing with really futuristic problems, and with more "hit the coin" moments that Mario. Who would imagine that the future of the humanity is linked with the capability to huge organisms to do physical work that makes the stronger animal look like crap
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would you call it?
more like capillary action. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylem#Cohesion-tension_theory
Capillary action is subject to the same limits as suction at the top. Capillary action can't increase the water pressure at the bottom of the tree.
If you put a straight thin capillary tube upright in water so it sucks up water from the bottom, no matter how thin, it can't draw water up above ~10m of water level.
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#108I grow marijuana and chillies from time to time. I got good at it. I will say that plants are malleable in untold ways and so I find this article to be unsurprising. Plants will do what they need to do in the end. I've done stuff like co2 bombing, and increasing nutrients to the point to where I get a whole new ecosystem of insects and an entirely new situation. It is such fascinating stuff that it's actually the lif…
one time, while communing with Nature, I looked up at the transpiring coastal tree line flexing in the wind and I uttered, "pumps."
My hunch is that torsion, flex and their effect on the capillary structures are at play, but I haven't been able to step away from CS myself.
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#109>Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches Hm, may be because they are not really "pumping" the water?
What would you call it?
There seems to be a lot of things that come together to make it work, but it's basically sucking not pumping. The term to google is Transpiration.
It's a bit like a siphon effect with water evaporating from the leaves creating low pressure internally which draws more water up, and the reason it's able to pull a whole column of water up is because water molecules stick together to some extent via hydrogen bonds.
Given that evaporation is what is driving it, I wonder how that works with evergreens with low evaporation - I guess it's basically a replacement system, so you only need to pull what you evaporate.
Re: Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do wave in the wind, and evolution is likely capturing some of that motion for work.
Not sure if you’ve ever visited the groves in California where these huge trees grow but they seem to find the place where the wind doesn’t really seem to bother them, among other reasons (fog staying and little creeks terminating are others). And when the wind comes along it’s surprising how little they actually wave. Such tiny radii change I reckon cannot move much water like you’d need for a pumping notion. So I’d…
I have seen trees before too, anecdotally, my random naysayer.