The Ripe Stuff: Green Tomatoes, Bananas & Ethylene

Fried Green Tomatoes
About this time of year in the North Temperate Zone people may be getting very tired of fried green tomatoes and green tomato pie.
As a plant physiologist, I was often asked how to ripen green tomatoes. (Rather than go into this here, I’ll refer you to this recent blogpost.)
You probably already know [...]

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How Plants Make Flowers – Part 4: Genetics of Flowering

The Long and Winding Road
So far, this journey through the subject of how plants make flowers has consisted of three parts:
Part 1, an introduction to the flowering hormone florigen,
…Part 2, how environmental cues affect flowering,
..and, Part 3, how the size and age of the plant itself may trigger flowering.
The Players
Because the genetic story of [...]

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Does the Moon Affect Plants? Part 2: Moonlight and Biorhythms

The Biology of Moonlight?
The moon may have effects on animal behavior (see here for example), but does it affect plants?
Last time I introduced the scientific literature on the subject by referring to a 1946 paper by Beeson (see ref. 1 below) published in the journal Nature. In this paper Dr. Beeson divided the information regarding [...]

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Does the Moon Affect Plants?

Walking on the Moon
On July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to walk on the moon.
With the 40th anniversary of this first moon landing currently in news, I thought it would be interesting to investigate what’s known about the effects, if any, of the moon on [...]

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Wicked Plants?

Toxic? Yes!….. But wicked?
Wicked (wik’id) adj. [Middle English wikke, evil, akin to Old English wicce, witch] “1. morally bad or wrong; acting or done with evil intent; depraved; iniquitous.” – Webster’s New World Dictionary
A wonderful new book Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart, which I just [...]

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Is Sex Necessary?: For Dandelions, Apparently Not.

Send In The Clones
Few plants generate such annoyance among suburban homeowners with immaculate lawnscapes as the common dandelion (in North America, most likely Taraxacum officinale).
Despite efforts to eradicate them using chemical warfare (see here for info on such herbicides), the dandelions exhibit a remarkable ability to proliferate.
And they do so likely because they produce seeds [...]

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Plant Versus Plant: Some Plants Kill Other Plants Using Natural Herbicides

Alien Invader Uses Chemical Warfare
Spotted knapweed (photo left) is an invasive plant in North America.
It is native to Central Europe, east to central Russia, Caucasia, and western Siberia, but was accidentally introduced to North America through contaminated seed or ballast beginning in the late 1800’s.
Since then, spotted knapweed has spread throughout most of Canada and [...]

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Why Herbicides Kill Plants (But Not You) – Part 2: Roundup®

The Last Roundup?
The herbicide that most Americans are likely familiar with is Roundup®.
Unlike the auxin-based herbicides I discussed in the previous post, Roundup® is not a selective herbicide. That is, it usually kills all green plants (except if the plant is Roundup Ready® or if the plant is a naturally Roundup®-resistant “superweed” – see [...]

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Why Herbicides Kill Plants (But Not You)

What Do Suburban Lawns and the Vietnam War Have in Common?
Answer: The herbicide 2,4-D.
You may be familiar with this herbicide as an active ingredient in “Weed ‘n Feed®”, “Weed B Gon MAX®”, Turf Builder® With Weed Control”, etc..
During the Vietnam War, it was an active ingredient in Agent Orange.
On lawns it’s used [...]

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