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Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.com

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Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#61

Post by lazide »

lumost wrote: post #11
lazide wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that you’re wrong, but I find it darkly amusing that rather than than cut back on all the crazy things we’re doing, it would make sense to instead bio engineer a bunch of plant life to deal instead.

What is the proposed mechanism for implementing a cut back? A global population with 8 billion people and 1950s carbon emissions implies an average living standard somewhere in the realm of the 1900s. Are you volunteering to move back to the horse and buggy? Bear in mind that the industrialized world of 1950 was only inhabited by a small portion of the global population at most a billion people. The only path forward…

Notably, I’d count ‘technological innovation to reduce or remove carbon emissions’ as cutting back on the crazy.

I’m pretty sure that’s long forgotten now in the list of national priorities eh? Definitely in the USA. With war on their borders even the EU is reconsidering plans eh?

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#62

Post by griffzhowl »

anon84873628 wrote: post #44
griffzhowl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the connection? I thought the Ci would be Koppen climate classification but it's actually alternate carbon-fixing photosynthetic processes

If you read the article it explains why.

Yeah, ok. I read about half the article and it was just talking about growing tomatoes in Texas rather than their homeland of the northern Andes.

Now I see in the last paragraph it says C4 photosynthesis is more efficient in hot climates and C3 more efficient in cooler climates.

I don't see though what's the benefit of bioengineering C3 plants to operate with C4, rather than to utilise C4 plants where the climate is suitable for them?

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#63

Post by roelschroeven »

exoverito wrote: post #47
Arainach wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could start by banning things that explicitly waste resources such as proof of work cryptocurrency and adjust tax incentives to punish huge energy consumers for things like AI. Make the energy cost factor in the long-term externalities and maybe companies will hesitate before burning the world for things that aren't necessary. Things don't have to be perfect - you start with the biggest polluters/consumers and use…

Disturbingly authoritarian impulses for a dubious prescription. The climate goes through natural cycles, we are actually coming out of a global temperature low after the ice age. Cold eras are actually far more dangerous throughout human history, for example the Little Ice Age during the Dark Ages which caused widespread crop failures and famine in Europe. Warm eras are correlated with the golden ages of civilization…

If you think the rise in global temperature that's going on now is going to lead to the golden ages of civilization, you're deeply confused about how the world works.

Go to the Wikipedia page on the Little Ice Age, have a look at the graph Global Average Temperature Change, and explain to us how current climate change is at all comparable to the Little Ice Age, or the Medieval Warm Period for that matter.

Or have a look at https://xkcd.com/1732/ (scroll all the way down) to get an idea of the rate and scale of temperature changes throughout human history.

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#64

Post by griffzhowl »

jt2190 wrote: post #23
firesteelrain wrote: post #13

This isn’t true. You can grow - it’s just the seasons are different or offset. In the warmer climates you actually have a longer growing season than say New England. Your local extension office can explain. For example, here is the UFIFAS which is very good https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/media/sfylifasufledu/orange/hort-r...

The author is not talking about vegetables but various non-food plants that require cool overnight temperatures.

> author is not talking about vegetables

He's talking about growing tomatoes all the way through the article. Nothing but talking about how tomatoes grow

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#65

Post by oorza »

lazide wrote: post #60
oorza wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if I had Elon Musk money, I'd build some kind of giant carbon capture mechanism. Perhaps I'd buy the largest basalt quarry I could find and start sequestering carbon at a planetary scale. It would cost a ton of money, but I'd do it in secret. If it worked, eventually it would show up on the scales, and I'd emerge from the shadows. This particular method of carbon capture could potentially work at a planetary…

I think you don’t understand the true scale of the problem. Just the additional fossil carbon being put in the atmosphere by the US alone is trillions of KG/yr. Not only is there no way to hide trying to do something about it at that scale, there is no single site (or even multiple sites) that could handle that amount of sequestration - we’re talking hundreds. And even Elon Musk could not afford it, even if he dumped…

No, but you could do enough of it in secret with Elon Musk resources to prove that it's both planetarily viable and doesn't cause catastrophes by existing and then lend your political weight to having it scaled up globally. By the time the public heard about it, it would already be a done deal.

I think you could prove it out at a scale that people could measure on planetary CO2 sensors for a couple dozen billion dollars, then take that data to a sitting POTUS you're friendly with and work out a multi-trillion dollar commercialization plan, using the USA's global bullying power to immediately establish a global monopoly.

A particularly cynical view would be this CEO buying global laws that dictate carbon neutrality while simultaneously also making it impossible to achieve without his CCS. Then merely canceling a sales contract topples a regime and you've arrived a global corporatocracy.

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#66

Post by bix6 »

mythrwy wrote: post #31
bix6 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy smokes those are massive!

Thanks! I take the zone denial the other way as well and have tropical plants like banana, mango, dragon fruit, pineapple etc. that I protect in the winter from snow and freezing temperatures.

Don’t tempt me with mango! Where’d you learn the techniques?

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#67

Post by marcosdumay »

a012 wrote: post #39

Apparently I have cool climate plants: apple, avocado, lavender those are germinated from seeds and blackberry, and fig from cuttings also living in a hot and humid climate. Definitely they can grow here, but can they be farmed? Of course not without expensive climate controls

Wait, avocado and lavender are supposed to be cool climate plants?

They grow like weeds around here. The tomatoes the article cites don't grow as well, but are still perfectly farmable.

Besides, people have been adapting species for other climates for millennia. I don't think it makes sense to talk about entire species that way.

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#68

Post by griffzhowl »

7thaccount wrote: post #46
a012 wrote: post #39

Apparently I have cool climate plants: apple, avocado, lavender those are germinated from seeds and blackberry, and fig from cuttings also living in a hot and humid climate. Definitely they can grow here, but can they be farmed? Of course not without expensive climate controls

Blackberry and it's variants like dewberry are very common in the south and do fine in the high heat and humidity. It's almost impossible to kill. I have 4 different varieties growing wild and in planters at my house. I also have many apple trees and they do struggle - even the native varieties. I think that's mainly due to fungus, aphids, and the poor soil though. No idea about avocado.

Are you talking about the southern US? How can there be native apple varieties? I thought they were all originally from around central Asia and a quick look on wikipedia confirms this

Re: Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates

#70

Post by randycupertino »

ASinclair wrote: post #40
miquong wrote: post #3

The author has a highly amusing, off-beat Instagram feed: https://www.instagram.com/crime_pays_but_botany_doesnt

He also has a YouTube channel. I first saw him speak at SF Nerd Nite which is a speaker series in San Francisco. He’s very entertaining and basically a self taught botanist.

His youtube channel is great! I love his Bay Area hikes and plant explanations.

There's a nice article about him, he is a full-time train engineer who drives train shipments all around the west coast and while he was traveling he got curious about all the plants he would see from the train so he started going to the libraries on his breaks from work to learn about plants.

https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/botany-joe...

Interesting chilean high-elevation rare carrot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdodZcrFIPM&t=2s

old growth redwoods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbma869jMQY&t=4s

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