Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Practical Botany Vocabulary Everyone Should Know
54 Plays18 hours ago
In this episode of Hort Culture, the hosts dive into practical botany vocabulary that gardeners, plant enthusiasts, and curious learners can use to better understand the plants around them. Through a lively and humorous discussion, they explain key botanical terms such as petiole, midrib, leaf margin, simple versus compound leaves, deciduous plants, allelopathy, monoecious and dioecious reproduction, grafting terminology, vivipary, and plant nodes. Along the way, they connect these concepts to real-world gardening situations, from identifying trees and selecting cover crops to growing asparagus, saving seeds, grafting fruit trees, and managing tomato plants. The episode blends plant science, gardening advice, and entertaining anecdotes to help listeners build their botanical vocabulary while gaining a deeper appreciation for how plants grow, reproduce, and interact with their environment.
University of Kentucky Master Gardener Basic Botany
Utah State University Tree and Botanical Glossary
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@gmail.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Joy of Learning
00:00:16
Alexis
We're gonna be doing some learning today, friends. We like to think you're always learning, but also enjoying when you're here with us, but maybe a little bit of both today, so for sure.
00:00:19
Plant People
Learning from you guys.
00:00:26
brett
yeah Hopefully they're they're you're you either yearning to learning.
00:00:28
Plant People
Sounds like an open-ended topic.
00:00:31
Alexis
Learning to learning.
00:00:31
Plant People
Yearning to learn.
00:00:34
Alexis
We are extension professionals, right? It says that in the intro. So we have to do some learn some learning, but hopefully these will be useful learning and you'll be um famous at parties for your knowledge.
00:00:45
Alexis
That's what I think.
00:00:46
Plant People
Or ostracized parties either way.
00:00:46
brett
Famous at parties.
00:00:48
Plant People
You know, people may avoid you.
00:00:49
Alexis
you Never. Listen, if you're ostracized at a party, let us know.
00:00:52
Plant People
You're the wrong party.
00:00:52
Alexis
You can come to our parties. Yeah,
Understanding Botany Vocabulary
00:00:54
Plant People
You're the wrong party.
00:00:54
Alexis
you're at the wrong party.
00:00:54
Alexis
you got to find your people. um
00:00:56
Plant People
You got to find the garden party. The garden party is where you want to be. Save friend and enter.
00:01:00
Alexis
Yeah, the garden party. Well, we thought we would, um you know, we talk a lot. We use a lot of vocab words on this podcast. And we were like, you know, it'd be fun to maybe dive ah into some of those, you know, botany vocab words that we throw around.
00:01:18
Alexis
um I've got a few fun ones that are probably not something you'll use in your everyday life. But you might. And also, you might win a Jeopardy question with these.
00:01:26
brett
You should use them in your everyday life.
00:01:27
Alexis
You never know it. The Daily Double might be something that you'll answer with one of mine, but also just, you know, some concepts.
00:01:28
Plant People
jeopardy
00:01:33
Alexis
I know we throw a lot of those words around. So we just thought, hey, let's just have a little little little learning, little botany session with you guys.
00:01:40
brett
Words. Words with friends, words with plants.
00:01:44
Plant People
plant people talking botany.
00:01:44
Alexis
We're just plants.
00:01:46
Plant People
No way. Who would have saw that coming?
00:01:47
Alexis
We're just plant at people.
00:01:48
Plant People
Ooh, I like that words with plant people.
00:01:49
Alexis
I will tell you my favorite one that is not actually a part of this definition, but I've said it before and I'll say
Fun with Botany Terms: Megaspore Mother Cell
00:01:55
Alexis
it again. ah The day I learned that plants have something called a Megaspore Mother Cell was like the day I was like TM.
00:02:02
Alexis
That is my band name. um But you yeah, that exists. And if you wanted to have a rock band named Megaspore Mother Cell, you can be in my rock band because I have no actual musical talent.
00:02:09
brett
Mega Spore Mother Cell.
00:02:14
Alexis
Yeah.
00:02:14
Plant People
You just gave away your idea, Alexis.
00:02:15
Alexis
Yeah, it's real thing.
00:02:16
Plant People
Now everyone's going to go out and just use that.
00:02:17
Alexis
No, listen, if I'm an extension, we're all about sharing here.
00:02:22
brett
Yeah, Ray.
00:02:22
Alexis
Free sharing, even though I i did technically say TM, so.
00:02:23
Plant People
Yeah, just
00:02:26
Plant People
but trademark. trade run yeah So are you going to explain what that is? I mean, that's too provocative.
00:02:32
Alexis
No, that one's not on in the list. I just wanted everybody to know I had it as a band name.
00:02:35
Plant People
Got you that it's on there.
00:02:35
brett
i will say nothing further.
00:02:36
Plant People
Now everyone's going to have to go look it up. They're probably doing that right now as they're listening to this.
00:02:39
Alexis
fifty fifty
00:02:41
Plant People
So it does sound like a rock band, probably a late nineties.
00:02:42
Alexis
Maybe that'll be our Instagram post. I'll put that as our Instagram post.
00:02:45
Plant People
You know, it's go it's ah definitely a band name.
00:02:46
brett
What is Megaspore Mother Cell, Alex?
00:02:50
Alexis
Exactly.
00:02:50
brett
I mean, Ken.
00:02:50
Alexis
Ken.
00:02:51
Plant People
It's a four piece band with lots of electrification and neon lights, Brett.
00:02:55
Alexis
All
00:02:57
Plant People
That's what it is.
00:02:58
Alexis
right.
00:02:59
brett
Well, i I have a little set of them.
00:02:59
Alexis
all right Well, who wants to go first?
00:03:04
brett
um
00:03:04
Alexis
Love it.
00:03:05
brett
So I think one of one of the ways that you can take...
Leaf Identification Basics
00:03:10
brett
if you're interested in trees or you're interested in shrubs or what any, you know, kind of any of the plants, a typical way that lot of times we'll identify those is by looking at the leaves.
00:03:20
brett
And when you look at the leaves, there's different terminology that people will use to describe them.
00:03:21
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:03:25
brett
And so I thought I would give you some of those terms. And so the starting from this, the area off the plant that it's coming off of the plant, that little thing that you might want to call the stem of the leaf, um,
00:03:37
brett
The little nibbin that connects the the main part of the leaf back to the plant is the petiole. And so last time we were talking about crushing petioles and getting the juice out and putting it in a meter to um to see about ah nutrition.
00:03:51
brett
So that's the petiole.
00:03:51
Alexis
Is your testing?
00:03:53
brett
It's not a stem. It's a petiole. Okay. As you move up the petiole, the extension of that through the leaf in many cases, it's that kind of central structure under of the like actual leaf part.
00:03:57
Alexis
Get it straight.
00:04:07
Alexis
The vein.
00:04:08
brett
It's like the central vein we call the midrib. And then coming off of that midrib are these veins. So the veiny structures are called veins in this case. So you have the midrib, the veins. Now, the thing about those is like the petiole could be different colors. It could have a different characteristic that could be used to describe to tell one thing from another. The vein might be a particular color or thickness or whatever, and the veins might come off in different orientations. So they can be kind of slightly alternated or they can be, you know, different angles, whatever. the edge of the leaf all the way around. If you were to take and trace the whole outside of it, we call that the margin of the leaf. So, you know, people on the margins of society or on the edges of society, the edge of the leaf is the margin of the leaf. And that's a big one, um, that you'll see to, to, for people to differentiate. And so you'll see if it's completely smooth, if it's toothed, if the two thing might have a particular characteristic, it could be deeply, um, uh,
00:05:09
brett
What is the word here?
00:05:09
Alexis
Looked.
00:05:10
Plant People
Lobed or toothed.
00:05:10
Alexis
lookeded
00:05:10
brett
Yeah, lobed or serrated or whatever. it it it can That is another way.
00:05:13
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:05:15
brett
And so when you look at tree identification, sometimes they'll give an indication that of a ah you know deeply lobed margin or something
Leaf Shapes and Tree Species Identification
00:05:22
brett
like that. and they're just talking about the edge. And then you go out to the the tip. The spaces between the leaf or sorry between the veins on the leaf are called the lamina.
00:05:31
brett
um I don't really see a whole lot of that in identification, but sometimes...
00:05:34
Alexis
No, we don't use that too often.
00:05:36
brett
But yeah, so petiole, vein, midrib, margin, and vein. Those are some of the big ones that I think people use to describe relief.
00:05:44
Plant People
And if you've ever done a leaf collection in school, this is eminently important or should have been eminently important to you.
00:05:47
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:05:52
Plant People
i don't know, Brett, is this, you guys, is this the most common way when people are trying to figure out something, identify something? Is this one of the most common ways that they do it? Look for the leaves and some of these features, Brett?
00:06:02
Plant People
It seems like one of the things I look for first.
00:06:06
brett
I think so. I think depends it depends on what what you're talking about. um Because like, yeah, it depends on the time of year.
00:06:10
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:06:10
Alexis
And time of year.
00:06:13
brett
It depends on how close you're able to get or want to get. ah
00:06:16
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:06:16
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:06:16
Plant People
yeah.
00:06:16
brett
But like you can also tell things from like the the shape or structure of ah of the plant itself. like ah Like maple trees tend to grow like maple trees as compared to a ginkgo.
00:06:26
Alexis
yeah
00:06:26
brett
And and that's that's a silly thing to say, but like people who are good at trees, they can see it from a long distance away.
00:06:32
Plant People
oh yeah
00:06:32
brett
They can just tell. And so, like for instance, you may think all pine trees look like pine trees, but if I'm driving by and I see an eastern white pine versus a Virginia pine, i it's it's immediate, like from a long way off, I can tell the difference.
00:06:47
brett
And we were at Udell recently and there was a... ah a cultivar of white pine that had extremely short needles, which of course I was like bonsai immediately, please.
00:06:57
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:07:00
Alexis
ah
00:07:01
brett
But also it was like, it was a little disorienting because it just didn't look, you could just tell something didn't look right about it. The color was right.
00:07:07
Alexis
Yeah.
00:07:08
brett
The growth habit was similar, but the the needles, it felt, felt different. So anyway, um yeah, I think, I think the leaf shape is one of those where you can, Especially if you're like, I'm not sure if, you know, it could be this or it could be this, you might move in closer and see, oh okay.
00:07:23
brett
I can see the margin on this one is clearly this.
00:07:25
Alexis
Or like, um you know it might you know it's an oak, so oaks are a good example. A lot of people can identify an oak or a maple, right? you Those are a little more intrinsic for those of us who grew up in around deciduous forest, but you don't know what kind of
Tree Form and Landscape Design
00:07:39
Alexis
oak.
00:07:39
Alexis
And so then you can look at the leaves because there's a lot of different leaf shapes in oak, same with maple.
00:07:41
brett
Exactly.
00:07:45
Alexis
um But you can get you can at least get down to, God, and maelots.
00:07:46
brett
And a lot of hybridization within oaks makes me mad.
00:07:49
Plant People
You know, in in landscap and landscaping, we didn't look at really ah the the leaf itself first in landscape design. I worked a little bit in commercial landscaping. ah When I was first getting started is, Brett, you mentioned just the form of a tree, the general form.
00:08:06
Plant People
There's a big difference between a weeping willow and a Colorado blue spruce, and it's, you know, physiological and and its mental impact on you and the landscape and how that affects design. But just the form of a tree, there's all of these terminologies that will describe the basic, whether it's, and you know, Lancelot shape, the form, columnar, you know, globe-shaped, whatever.
00:08:28
Plant People
there's There's this whole vocabulary just to describe not the leaf shape, but the overall appearance.
00:08:34
brett
The actual tree shape.
00:08:34
Alexis
to form. formed
00:08:35
Plant People
Yeah, weeping, whatever, yeah.
00:08:35
brett
Yeah.
00:08:37
Plant People
but there's it's got its own vocabulary list just for the shape of the general tree. And i I think that's pretty cool. And it's kind of a big deal for landscape architects and designers.
00:08:44
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:08:47
Alexis
And I will say, if you're like, wow, how do people learn all of this? This is so much to intake. Please remember, it took us years of these. For Ray and i years of studying and have degrees in it.
00:09:00
Alexis
For Brett, it's just years
Simple vs. Compound Leaves
00:09:02
Alexis
of nerding out over tiny, tiny trees.
00:09:03
Plant People
Love and care.
00:09:04
brett
curious character.
00:09:04
Alexis
ah But it's not something you need to remember overnight more along the lines of making you aware that these things exist so that when you hear them, you're like, I think that, you know, a petiole, I think that has something to do with the leaf.
00:09:04
Plant People
Yeah.
00:09:07
Plant People
yeah
00:09:17
Alexis
Right. And, you know, um that will be helpful.
00:09:19
Plant People
And some some trees that everybody owns.
00:09:20
brett
Yeah. and between between your between a book or like an app or or you know something that you have with you, like it's very common for people who are doing identification and stuff to have stuff with them, you know either notes or to have a book.
00:09:32
brett
It's where you can compare and look and see it.
00:09:34
Alexis
Mine's my car.
00:09:34
brett
So it's not yeah it's it's not like people are just like everybody's just walking around with this vocabulary of all these different things.
00:09:40
Alexis
oh yes that was the red oak that is native to nah i got a tree id book in my car i can key out like
00:09:41
brett
Yeah.
00:09:44
brett
Yeah. Taste the leaf a little. The tannin content suggests a Quercus rubrum.
00:09:52
Alexis
growing in more acidic soil yeah well i've got
00:09:57
brett
Yeah, so ah so that's so that's my leaf my leaf shape quick tips. I have some other leaf ones too, but even just being aware that like the difference between like the difference between like an an ashaf and a ah
00:10:11
Alexis
Yeah, I
00:10:13
brett
a horn beam, you know, like some people might confuse those if they don't have any idea what they're doing. But as soon as you look at it and a little bit more closely and know what you're looking at, there's kind of some similarity. I mean, there's some different real difference.
00:10:23
Plant People
The a leaf versus a leaflet. Yeah.
00:10:25
Alexis
yeah i was going to say.
00:10:25
brett
Yep, exactly.
00:10:26
Plant People
Yep. Yeah. and Which that it's, it's kind of tough. You're like, Oh, leaves. That's pretty straightforward. That's a leaf on a tree. No, it's not because is it a leaf or a leaflet?
00:10:34
Alexis
No, that whole thing is the entire leaf.
00:10:35
Plant People
Yeah.
00:10:36
Alexis
Like Kentucky coffee tree, the quote unquote leaf is like four foot long.
00:10:37
Plant People
yeah yeah
00:10:41
Plant People
Yeah.
00:10:41
Alexis
It's the leaflets that are the small things.
00:10:43
Plant People
Yeah.
00:10:43
brett
So you are leading me into this and we'll just going to up talking about trees the whole time.
00:10:43
Alexis
Okay.
00:10:44
Plant People
yeah
00:10:46
brett
But, uh, but so what, what Ray and Alexis are talking about is the difference between a simple leaf and a compound leaf.
00:10:47
Plant People
That's fun too. Yeah. I'm good with it.
00:10:57
brett
And so a simple leaf, you, the leaf comes directly off of the branch of the tree. And it's just a single, usually a single little leaf that comes off. It's a simple leaf. Hence the name simple, the compound leaves, uh,
00:11:12
brett
There is a
Leaf Structures in Education
00:11:13
brett
central ah axis, I guess, a central. It looks like a sort of a stem, but it is actually all that whole thing and all of the little sub leaflets that come off of it are all one big leaf.
00:11:28
Alexis
Mm-hmm. They all come off of one main petiole.
00:11:29
brett
Technically, technically speaking.
00:11:31
Plant People
Leaflet, yeah, leaflet doesn't come from, is it a leaflet doesn't come from a node?
00:11:31
brett
Yes.
00:11:35
Plant People
It comes from a stem and a true leaf has to come from a node. I know it gets confusing in there when you dig too deep into the weeds.
00:11:40
brett
Yeah.
00:11:41
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:11:43
Plant People
So.
00:11:44
brett
And the the reason, i mean, part of the reason that matters or that as far as growth happens and stuff like that is that new branches are going to come primarily from a bud at the base of that compound leaf.
00:11:53
Plant People
Yeah.
00:11:53
brett
There's not going to be, you know, six or eight little branches that are going to come off of that leaflet in the same way. And so, um but like a black walnut is an example, black locust.
00:12:07
brett
what I just said one. What did I just say?
00:12:09
Plant People
You guys are talking about the coffee tree There's like shoemakes You know
00:12:13
brett
What did I compare to the carpinet?
00:12:14
Alexis
Yellow, oh, I don't remember which tree you compared.
00:12:17
Plant People
Ash trees Ash yeah
00:12:17
Alexis
Hornbeam and ash.
00:12:18
brett
An ash. I think it was an ash. Yeah. um But anyway, so so that that's it.
00:12:21
Alexis
Mm-hmm. And
00:12:23
brett
can Sometimes it still fools me because especially in the early part of the season when shoots are extending and stuff's growing and it still has a greenness to it, it kind of can look like it. So, um yeah, it's kind of a kind of an interesting piece.
00:12:34
Alexis
then you have double compound leaves. We get crazy up in here, you guys.
00:12:37
brett
yeah
00:12:38
Plant People
Panate compound, bipanately, yeah.
00:12:38
brett
And the nature, and you even you can have ones that look more like your palm rather than the long skinny ones.
00:12:38
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:12:42
Plant People
Poundately, yeah. Buckeye trees looking at you.
00:12:44
brett
So anyway, simple leaf versus compound leaf. Take a look at the margin. And with that, you can pretty well identify a whole lot of stuff.
00:12:52
Plant People
Sure.
00:12:53
brett
What other stuff we got?
00:12:53
Plant People
Good stuff.
00:12:54
brett
i have one written down that i can I don't have an answer to, but I can pull you all on.
00:12:58
Plant People
Alexis threw out a term and did not explain it. So that's the rule of this episode. If you throw
Deciduous vs. Evergreen Plants
00:13:02
Plant People
out a botany term, you have to explain it.
00:13:04
brett
Will you all?
00:13:04
Plant People
Uh, what you said deciduous, but now you, that may not have been yours, but yeah.
00:13:04
Alexis
OK, well, i I have one.
00:13:06
brett
Okay, Alexis.
00:13:10
Alexis
Okay. Well, I can, do you want me to cover deciduous? Deciduous is just the um plant loses its leaves in the winter is like the easiest way, right?
00:13:15
brett
This is a little...
00:13:21
Plant People
Yeah. There you go.
00:13:22
Alexis
So we have like conifers, yes, that keep their needles or we have some, you know, like trees that'll keep their leaves, shrubs that keep their leaves, you know, through winter boxwood for an example versus a maple, an oak we keep going back to because those are easy.
00:13:23
Plant People
Boom. Yeah.
00:13:32
Plant People
Yeah.
00:13:36
Alexis
But um they lose their leaves in the winter. So they're deciduous. So you might hear like, oh, it's a deciduous forest region, meaning majority of the forest loses loses its leaves.
00:13:47
Alexis
It's it's naked um in the wintertime. So that's deciduous. That wasn't one of mine. i was going to talk about one yeah.
00:13:54
brett
So can i can i briefly interject?
00:13:56
Alexis
yeah Yes.
00:13:56
brett
Because I'm always curious about the origin of words. So the deciduous comes from a very linear, um the Latin word deciduous.
00:14:07
Alexis
Mm.
00:14:07
brett
meaning tending to fall or falling down or off. So it's more of the physical description rather than anything botanical.
00:14:11
Alexis
Leafful.
00:14:15
brett
um And apparently at some point they use the set term to describe things like antlers and baby teeth and other stuff that just falls out periodically.
00:14:16
Alexis
ass Leafful.
00:14:24
Plant People
So I have deciduous teeth. That's strange to me.
00:14:27
brett
My adult hair, deciduous, goodbye.
00:14:27
Plant People
I have deciduous. Deciduous. It has fallen. Mm-hmm.
00:14:33
brett
Anyway, so what was your Yeah.
00:14:34
Alexis
I'm going to start using that more. and dar oh well, i if I feel like it's timely because some of you out there might be doing some cover cropping either for the summer because you're you know sick of
00:14:36
brett
yeah
00:14:47
Alexis
the heat and the garden and no shame there or going into winter, you might be wanting to, you know, put some cover
Allelopathy in Plants
00:14:53
Alexis
crop down. And so a term to be familiar with, especially there, but also if you happen to have some black walnuts on your property is a term called allelopathy.
00:15:02
Alexis
And I think we've brought this up before in some older episodes, but this is, um,
00:15:02
brett
Oh.
00:15:04
Plant People
Um,
00:15:07
Alexis
Basically something that the plant does, this you know organism does, it releases these biochemicals through the root system but to ah prevent germination of other plants that aren't itself. So you know a black walnut can tolerate its own juglone, which is its allelopathy. Rye, the reason I bring it up for cover crops is rye has some allelopathic things that can be used for weed suppression. So that's a way it's used in cover crops. But to also say, you know, maybe you put in a rye cover crop, you mow it down, roll it down, whatever you do to terminate it, you can't go in and direct seed your carrots into that um for a couple weeks because those chemicals in the soil will prevent that germination. So that's one that I always kind of have to keep in mind.
00:15:57
Alexis
You can go in with transplants, things like that, um but seeding is usually off limits. Now some like the black walnut, There's plants that are very sensitive, even if you go in as transplants. So tomatoes are very sensitive to black walnuts. If you plant anywhere within that ah canopy zone, um you're going to have some problems. They are very unhappy with the drug loan. But yeah, it keeps competition down for those plants and allows only their basically only their offspring to germinate and grow.
00:16:31
brett
So, uh, just another, another little eto etymological word, word thing, allelopathy, combination of allelon and pathos sometimes translate are artfully translated as mutual suffering.
00:16:31
Alexis
it's pretty cool.
00:16:35
Alexis
Yes.
00:16:50
brett
So that it, it causes, it has this effect on the other, you know, this idea of ah affecting other
00:16:50
Plant People
Seems about right. Yeah.
Managing Allelopathy in Agriculture
00:16:57
brett
plants.
00:16:57
brett
Um,
00:16:58
Alexis
I feel like if there's anybody out there who is um a pastor or someone who marries people, ah figure out how to work that into some, you know, marriage stuff. Like don't have an allelopathic marriage.
00:17:13
Plant People
Not a good thing.
00:17:13
Alexis
I like it.
00:17:15
brett
Or if you do ensure that your partner is strong enough to grow through it.
00:17:15
Alexis
Not a good thing.
00:17:20
Plant People
It's a growth opportunity, but not necessarily good one.
00:17:20
Alexis
don't be the Don't be the black walnut to your partner's tomato.
00:17:26
Plant People
Yeah, and there's some really cool ah extension information on the susceptibility of different plants to those ah compounds and plants that you know inhibit competition around it and pay particular attention to that because some you know garden crops are much more affected by that than other crops.
00:17:44
Plant People
And you can usually find that information readily available online from your local extension service.
00:17:45
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:17:50
Plant People
So check that out.
00:17:51
Alexis
and hopefully use it to your own benefit. Like that's the rye both is, has allelopathic tendencies, but it also like physically can cover the soil like a mulch, right?
00:17:53
Plant People
Yeah.
00:18:01
Alexis
So it's ah it's a double whammy there if used properly and, you know, with the right crops.
00:18:05
Plant People
Yeah.
00:18:06
Alexis
So, um you know, i like I like to get all the bang for the buck that I can get, okay?
00:18:12
brett
I like it.
00:18:14
Plant People
So one of these botany things is, you know, on the surface when we start to talk about these things and I really start to think about them, they like get progressively more complex.
Complexity of Botany and Learning Process
00:18:23
Plant People
We started talking about leaves and then it got progressively more complex.
00:18:26
Alexis
We're like a petiole, a double compound.
00:18:27
Plant People
You talk about a, yeah, petiole. Yeah. And then we just kind of branch out, no pun intended.
00:18:33
brett
Ayo.
00:18:33
Plant People
And we just go deeper and deeper down the Greek naming rabbit hole or whatever, of the Latin naming hole.
00:18:39
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:18:40
brett
We have entered our mutual suffering.
00:18:42
Plant People
Yeah. And we...
00:18:42
Alexis
I had so many flashcards, like just, yeah, like, you know, a stack this thick that I took everywhere with me.
00:18:46
Plant People
Yeah.
00:18:50
Alexis
And in any downtime, I had to go through the flashcards. So like, no one's expecting you to memorize them overnight. But again, you could be really cool at parties if you know some of these things. I'm just saying, I'm just saying.
00:18:59
Plant People
Good stuff. um I was trying to think of one. I i i was thinking of ah a couple, but one of the big concepts I think a lot about, and especially in landscape plants and um you know commercial fruit and vegetable crops, is this concept of monicious or daecious.
Monoecious and Dioecious Plants
00:19:16
Plant People
Monicious meaning...
00:19:18
Plant People
Male and female flowers are on the same plant. It can be self-fruitful, which is oftentimes the case, or it may not be self-fruitful. In a lot of cases it is.
00:19:27
Alexis
I'm both
00:19:28
Plant People
ah Yeah, it sometimes it's compatible with itself, sometimes it's not, but the main thing to remember male and female on the same plant. Now, on the other end of that, you have dioecious, meaning separate male and female flowers on separate plants.
00:19:42
Plant People
And that's a really important concept. And I was i was like, well, what's a practical example of that? Well, we had a, um and we were talking about asparagus and and it just dawned on me. That's a great ah example of where a crop was totally changed because it was dioecious.
00:19:58
Plant People
And I'll give an example of that. Old asparagus plantings in the U.S. were like old standard varieties, heirloom varieties like Martha Washington, which were made up of both male and female plants.
00:20:10
Plant People
They were dioecious, but that was not a good thing because then they would produce viable seeds. They'd go into the soil and just you had all this asparagus that got too thick.
00:20:16
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:20:21
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:20:21
Plant People
And it just crowded itself out over time. And it just sort of was not a desirable situation. Well, now I try to stress that if it's fine, if you want to grow a heirloom asparagus, you can do that and manage it a certain way.
00:20:34
Plant People
But I encourage people to pick one of the newer like male hybrids. Male because they have bigger spheres and they don't you know waste any energy on reproductive parts, which is, you know, the female plants.
00:20:46
Plant People
But they're all male hybrids. And the reason for that being they're very carefully bred and selected to be mostly, not all, but mostly male hybrids in that they will then not produce seeds that are overcrowd the patch over time.
00:21:00
Plant People
And all of that, and you know, the rise up of asparagus and home gardens, a lot of that was due to the fact of manipulation of monoecious and dioecious concepts.
00:21:00
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:21:10
Plant People
You know, there's a lot of monoecious concepts in your garden. You know, that' thing and that's a very good thing where male and female flowers, they'll cross and you'll have, you know, crops like corn and things like that that will pollinate easier because, you know, it has male and female um on the same plant.
00:21:26
Plant People
a lot of the vine crops, cucumbers, squash, things like that, all monoecious. But that's a really cool, powerful concept. and And it also translates to landscape plants and I guess the classic example there, ginkos, what else?
00:21:38
Alexis
Ginkgos. That's
00:21:42
Plant People
ah Like hollies, if you
Breeding Desirable Traits: Holly Plants
00:21:44
Plant People
want beautiful holly berries, you got to have, you know, the blue girl and the blue girl holly, you know, the old standard.
00:21:44
Alexis
the email plan.
00:21:49
Plant People
varieties, or you have to have a male and female if you want the berries. But in landscaping as well as food production, this concept of milnecious and dioecious, really important concept and plant breeding, really super important also.
00:22:03
Plant People
But it's kind of cool that, and you know, you could go far down that rabbit hole and I'm careful not go too far.
00:22:09
Alexis
yeah perfect and imperfect flowers like yeah
00:22:12
Plant People
Yes, it goes really, really far down that rabbit hole. But what other things I guess talking about this guy?
00:22:17
brett
Well, so the the way that i remember the way that I remember that um is that you know mono, like one, that it it takes one to tango if it's monoecious. If it's dioecious, it takes two to tango.
00:22:29
brett
In other words, you need to you need a two different plants.
00:22:30
Plant People
There you go.
00:22:34
brett
to But it gets to the point of like the usable or desirable portion of the plant
00:22:34
Plant People
Yeah.
00:22:40
brett
for us is kind of, in some cases, at odds with the innate, whatever you want to say, logic of that plant's life. You know, the plant, a plant wants to grow to be, ah to
Ginkgo Trees and Plant Reproduction Adaptability
00:22:53
brett
produce viable offspring.
00:22:53
Alexis
Reproduce.
00:22:55
brett
And if you have just male asparagus, there's not going to be any offspring. And that for us is a good thing.
00:23:02
Alexis
I have a great example of this. I might have told you all before, but ah when I worked in Boyle County, ah down the streets, the street trees, ah 20 years ago were ginkgo's planted, all male ginkgo's.
00:23:15
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:23:15
Alexis
And they worked with the so um UK arborists.
00:23:16
Plant People
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:23:18
Alexis
They planted all male ginkgo's. They were male for 10, 15 years. And slowly but surely, those plants changed to, some of those plants, not all, changed to female because they want to reproduce. And so the the the plant by itself, which is I mean, it's crazy when you think about it, right?
00:23:37
Alexis
Like, it's just not something that happens ah in in everything, but plants and certain animals do this. They'll, it changed sex because it said, these are all males. They somehow know that there is a word for that.
00:23:49
Alexis
I don't know that word. I'll have to look that one up, but slowly, but surely those,
00:23:52
brett
All toxic masculinity.
00:23:54
Plant People
that's it.
00:23:55
Alexis
maybe it's toxic femininity because they're turning female.
00:23:58
brett
It was so toxic that some of them needed to get out.
00:23:58
Alexis
Um,
00:24:00
brett
Whoa.
00:24:00
Alexis
Yeah, they were like, oh, men, there's too much men here.
00:24:01
Plant People
We learned about a Jurassic Park with frogs.
00:24:03
Alexis
But those plants started to turn female and no one believed, they were like, oh no, they've always been female.
00:24:08
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:24:10
Alexis
And i'm like, no, that's not true. This happens. So it is it's just kind of wild when you think about it.
00:24:15
brett
whoa
00:24:16
Plant People
Well, even when you plant the male hybrids like asparagus, there will be, i don't know, half percent, 1%. There's a certain percentage that's acceptable. You can't make it 100% of one thing.
00:24:26
Plant People
So there is a low likelihood that there'll be some, you know, crossing and viable seed production, you know, in an asparagus bed.
00:24:32
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:24:33
Plant People
But it's hard to get, like, guaranteed 100%. But in your case, it's a little different where there was a kind of a spontaneous changeover.
Heirloom Plants vs. Modern Hybrids
00:24:41
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah, and you can talk about like hermaphroditic plants and qualities that come from that.
00:24:46
Plant People
And like I said, go deep down the breeding rabbit hole of this because plant genetics have always been pretty fascinating to me when you start talking about things like heirlooms and what does that mean?
00:24:57
Plant People
an heirloom.
00:24:57
Alexis
who
00:24:58
Plant People
And the only thing makes an heirloom is I know I'm cheating. I'm going into a different concept. I realize this.
00:25:03
Alexis
I love it. Bring it, give it to me.
00:25:04
Plant People
But heirlooms are are fun to me. They kind of relate to this conversation because all an heirloom is is something that's developed in such a way that it's become self-stable over time, typically without intervention.
00:25:15
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:25:16
Plant People
It has a genetic pool that's very stable.
00:25:20
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:25:20
Plant People
It's developed very ah stability over time. It's typically 50 years or more older. And that seems kind of arbitrary to me. It's a plant that you know has a genetic pool that's 50 years plus.
00:25:29
Alexis
Well, yeah, because, like, how old is, like, a big boy tomato?
00:25:30
Plant People
It's kind of arbitrary. ah Yeah, but but it has to be at least that old. and
00:25:36
brett
When does a big boy tomato become a big man tomato?
00:25:37
Alexis
Mm.
00:25:39
Plant People
Yeah, big man. When does it grow up? But yeah, heirlooms are kind of cool like this because they have this genetic stability, but does that mean... When you have tomatoes with other hybrids in the garden, is it going to maintain 100% stability as an heirloom?
00:25:54
Plant People
Absolutely not.
00:25:54
Alexis
Mm.
00:25:55
Plant People
If you left them together for 50 more years, you know, all these different varieties with your heirloom, you would have slow genetic dilution over time.
00:25:55
Alexis
No.
00:25:59
Alexis
You'd have a different plan.
00:26:04
Plant People
But for the most part, it's very stable. You don't have F1 generations where you're breeding two distinct parents to get a hybrid offspring. That's the whole F1 generation of breeding, but yeah.
00:26:16
Alexis
ah to That's your poodle and your, I always use the dog reference, that's your poodle and your golden retriever making a golden doodle.
00:26:18
Plant People
safety
00:26:24
Alexis
That's your F1 is your golden doodle.
00:26:25
Plant People
Yes. But if you breed that dog to another dog, you're not going to get a very predictable outcome.
00:26:31
Alexis
Yeah.
00:26:31
Plant People
You're going to get a genetic outcross, but yeah.
00:26:33
brett
And feel free to go to the your local humane society's listings to see the byproducts of that type of breeding.
00:26:33
Alexis
Yeah.
00:26:33
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:40
Plant People
They will be there, but yeah, it's kind of cool. This monaceous, dioecious and plant breeding. That's where I kind of nerd out and I kind of enjoy kind of, uh, looking, you know, into this s because it kind of goes to my apple background.
00:26:48
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:26:52
Plant People
When you talk about like tree fruit crops, it gets really interesting.
00:26:53
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:26:54
brett
So it is does open pollinated fit in there?
Open Pollination and Genetic Stability
00:26:58
Plant People
Yeah. Open pollinated. Yes.
00:27:00
brett
Is it a just a synonym or is it...
00:27:00
Plant People
Uh,
00:27:02
Plant People
Tomatoes are interested when you say open pollinated because, you know, by the time the flower actually opens, it's just about pollinated almost instantly. And then no other pollen can get in. In that particular case, it's open pollinated.
00:27:15
Plant People
But at the same point, the plant kind of keeps its stability. You know, in the case of like we were talking about heirlooms, it's almost instantaneous pollination.
00:27:20
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:27:23
Plant People
Then done. It accepts nothing incoming, but there is a chance.
00:27:24
brett
Yeah.
00:27:26
Plant People
There's always an error and chance you're to golden doodle.
00:27:28
brett
Well, that's it it. It reminds me again, we were talking about earlier with the like the pollination, the reproduction being the thing that like, even within our goals, the the goal of growing an heirloom or open pollinated tomato,
00:27:43
brett
is twofold. It's to grow a delicious tomato and it's also to produce seeds that we could theoretically save to then grow again.
00:27:48
Plant People
viability true to top yeah
00:27:49
brett
With a hybrid tomato, we're literally just growing it for that fruit and we're done and we're getting seeds again the next time.
00:27:54
Alexis
Thank you.
00:27:54
Plant People
you can't say yeah you can't say because and then i would be like an f2 generation you would have known parentage from the f1 producing a very you know predictable offspring
00:27:55
brett
All right.
Challenges of Hybridization
00:28:06
Plant People
but beyond that all bets are off people
00:28:06
brett
or and And the reason the reason why i think the it will produce viable seeds that will grow into a plant.
00:28:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:28:15
brett
That's the thing that it's like, it's not like it's, yeah, it's not like this is forbidden that you can't, can't ever do this.
00:28:15
Plant People
So will apple trees.
00:28:20
Plant People
No.
00:28:20
brett
But, but what with the, the hybridization stuff, where you're taking, and this is not genetic engineering. This is old, good old fashioned breeding.
00:28:28
Plant People
No.
00:28:30
Alexis
Old school breathing.
00:28:30
Plant People
Just, oh, yep.
00:28:30
brett
Just, just exactly like the dogs. You put, put two tomato plants in a room together and not exactly, but ah put them in a room together and let the magic happen. And then they have a little baby seeds that we'll have, but, but usually you'll have one that has some sort of trait that you want for the fruit.
00:28:41
Plant People
Diceous.
00:28:49
brett
And then you'll have this other one that will have that might have some other trait. It has terrible fruit. They're tiny, they're bitter, they're whatever, but it's really good at resisting diseases or something like that.
00:28:54
Plant People
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:28:59
brett
And so then the offspring might look like it's, in that case, it's dad, which was the one that had terrible fruit and couldn't produce stuff.
00:29:06
Alexis
It's
00:29:06
brett
And so that's why, that that to bring it home to me personally, that's why when we have a tomato growing in our compost heap, And Annie's like, no, we can't kill it. I'm like, but why though?
00:29:20
brett
ah
00:29:20
Alexis
going to be an ogre.
00:29:21
brett
It is not going to be anything remotely like what? Yeah, it's going to be terrible. And then it's going to be.
00:29:26
Plant People
franken-tomato.
00:29:26
brett
Yeah. So anyway, I just had to get that off my chest.
00:29:31
Plant People
Sometimes, Brett, though, it's like eating gas station sushi, Brett.
00:29:31
brett
i've been carrying that. was me
00:29:34
Plant People
When you when you lose you lose big, you have a plant that's not very good.
00:29:35
brett
Roll the dice, baby.
00:29:40
Plant People
But when you win, we've gotten some very good apple varieties that were totally from actual naturally occurring crosses.
00:29:44
brett
True.
00:29:46
Plant People
Now, what crossed? We don't know. But once you get a good one, Brett, you get a good one. So it's gas station sushi. But most of the time, yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:29:53
brett
That's right.
00:29:55
Plant People
You wouldn't want to try to plant the seed from a really good apple variety for the same reason.
Grafting Techniques in Apple Cultivation
00:30:00
Plant People
You have no idea what you're going to get from that because at that point it's a random genetic cross.
00:30:05
Plant People
You know, that's like trying to predict, you know, what people's kids and grandkids are going to be like. You can't because it involves outcrossing. But yeah, it's a good point.
00:30:13
brett
so the...
00:30:13
Alexis
It's the Punnett Square!
00:30:15
Plant People
Yeah.
00:30:15
brett
So the, can we get it, can we do a quick bonus lightning round of, uh, grafting terminology for apples since we have the, and like in that example, the one that's really amazing.
00:30:24
Plant People
Yeah. So...
00:30:27
brett
We don't know what crossed with what, but we really like it. How would we get, how would we turn that into more apples like that?
00:30:30
Plant People
Yeah, I guess just to keep it real simple, you have top stock and bottom stock scion, which literally means child. That's the wood you would collect from an own variety.
00:30:41
brett
And that would be the top stock.
00:30:43
Plant People
That would be the little water sprouts, people call them, or whips, pencil thin or smaller. You pick some of those during the dormant season, February, March, and then you have known rootstock with its own qualities.
00:30:55
Plant People
And a lot of the disease resistant package and things like that, the anchorage, that i'll the the ultimate size of the tree, Alexis, that's the biggest thing, comes from the rootstock.
00:30:58
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Dwarfine.
00:31:04
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:31:05
Plant People
So the rootstock, give certain qualities, but the actual variety comes from the genetic material, the the plant material you collected from, in this case, let's say apple tree, the cyan wood, S-C-I-O-N.
00:31:17
Plant People
My Appalachian, I have to spell that out because it sounds like I'm saying cyan wood, S-I-G-N.
00:31:20
brett
Scion. Scionwood.
00:31:23
Plant People
It's cyan wood, which means child, but ah you then would put that onto the root. There's a lot of different methods to do to do that, but top stock,
00:31:31
Alexis
and graft it onto the rootstock.
00:31:33
Plant People
Yeah, grafted on. And that's how you get true to top apple varieties or most fruit trees are like that to get um ah true varieties. Otherwise, I mean, you would not know what you were getting.
00:31:45
Plant People
But yeah, grafting, that's how we get, you know, ah known varieties.
00:31:45
Alexis
this
00:31:49
Alexis
And the same terminology is used in all grafting. So like tomato grafting and like melon grafting has become a much bigger thing because of root, not nematode issues.
00:31:52
Plant People
Yeah.
00:31:57
Plant People
Yeah, really cool.
00:31:57
brett
Huge.
00:31:58
Alexis
So they're getting resistant root stocks with heirloom. Like they're getting resistant root stocks, but grafting a lot of the times heirloom varieties onto those resistant root stocks so that they get the heirloom and the benefit of the resistance.
00:32:04
Plant People
I
00:32:11
Alexis
And the melons, there's, you know, cases where it's happening with melons and stuff too, but um It's the same terminology, c scion and rootstock, no matter what it is, if it's grafting, it's always those
00:32:12
Plant People
do you
00:32:21
Plant People
and
Grafting in Other Plants: Benefits
00:32:22
Plant People
like tomatoes. There's ah there's different types of grafting, like bud grafting or chip grafting. I mean, but still the concepts are the same. You're you know grafting one plant material onto...
00:32:22
Alexis
two terms.
00:32:31
Alexis
Yeah, there's different types of grafting.
00:32:33
Plant People
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:33
Alexis
that's So very true.
00:32:34
Plant People
There's different types of grafting.
00:32:34
brett
Yeah, we're not going we're not going down that rabbit hole.
00:32:34
Alexis
But if you're...
00:32:36
Plant People
No, no, no.
00:32:37
Alexis
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:37
brett
isn't it
00:32:37
Plant People
But yeah.
00:32:37
brett
ah But I will say, that yes, and kate but in case you are wondering on the tomatoes and stuff, yes, that does mean you're growing two plants for every plant that goes in the ground.
00:32:38
Alexis
We've got some plant propagation stuff coming up, so...
00:32:41
Plant People
Oh, yeah, that's true.
00:32:49
brett
You are taking it and you're cutting it and you're putting the other one into it so that they merge together all for it to grow for one season. That is how, and so that sounds like a lot of work compared to an apple tree that's going to last for a number of years.
00:33:01
Plant People
A long time.
00:33:02
brett
But that's how desperate people are to deal with some of the pest pressures and and disease pressures and other things.
00:33:02
Plant People
Yeah.
00:33:06
Alexis
Yeah.
00:33:07
Plant People
Pretty amazing.
00:33:07
brett
i mean, it's becoming very common. And if you're good at grafting, you can get really fast. But nevertheless, it's it's a whole other step besides just dropping ah a a seed in ah in a dibbler, in a dibbled tray.
00:33:11
Plant People
Oh, yeah. yeah
00:33:17
Alexis
is it
00:33:17
Plant People
It's just but but botany. In the background, it's just botany doing what botany does.
00:33:19
Alexis
But speaking of speaking of tomatoes, I'm segueing in
Vivipary: A Natural Phenomenon
00:33:25
Alexis
here. I've got another term for you because it happens a lot in tomatoes is another fun word.
00:33:25
brett
Look at that.
00:33:30
Plant People
oh Oh.
00:33:31
Alexis
i like I'm liking the fun words as my botany term.
00:33:34
brett
BLT.
00:33:34
Alexis
I've got a really good one for you. But this one is called vivipery, which is such a fun word.
00:33:35
Plant People
Ooh, I like that. Bacon.
00:33:38
brett
Oh.
00:33:39
Alexis
It's such a good mouthfeel.
00:33:40
Plant People
That's one that really gets people excited, Alexis. It does.
00:33:43
Alexis
Vivipery. And so if you...
00:33:45
Plant People
It gets people excited.
00:33:47
Alexis
gets people It gets the people going.
00:33:48
Plant People
Literally.
00:33:48
Alexis
So if you've ever cut in it to into an arena
00:33:49
brett
ah woman It sounds like a dressage horse.
00:33:52
Alexis
and Vivipri has entered the the arena, I'm loving it. ah
00:34:00
Plant People
whom It's really cool.
00:34:01
Alexis
My next dog, Vivipri. Hear him then.
00:34:03
Plant People
It's a cool one. That's a cool one.
00:34:04
Alexis
but
00:34:04
Plant People
Yeah.
00:34:05
Alexis
But we we see it a lot in tomatoes. It can happen in a bunch of different things. But tomatoes especially, you know people tend to see it. So if you bring one home, you cut into it, and all of the seeds are starting to sprout, that is vivipari.
00:34:17
Alexis
And so a lot of – you'll see – my favorite thing is when I see them all on, like, social media and people are like, these are the monster tomatoes and they're GMO. And I'm sorry I'm giving a country accent.
00:34:28
Alexis
They could be a ah Brooklyn.
00:34:30
brett
do
00:34:30
Alexis
It doesn't matter.
00:34:31
brett
Give us a Brooklyn accent.
00:34:31
Alexis
Yeah.
00:34:32
Alexis
I will not be doing that.
00:34:32
Plant People
British accent.
00:34:34
brett
Give it a go. Just give it a try.
00:34:35
Alexis
No.
00:34:35
brett
Make it up to it make it up to the people.
00:34:37
Alexis
I can't. I can't. I'm too nervous.
00:34:38
brett
ah
00:34:39
Alexis
oh
00:34:40
brett
For those listening, Alexis is turning a bright shade of red right now.
00:34:43
Plant People
She's like, I have stepped in it and bread is making it so much worse.
00:34:45
Alexis
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I know I felt bad. I was like, i my accent comes out sometimes.
00:34:49
brett
look at these. Look at this these these monster tomatoes.
00:34:50
Plant People
But how many, how many times, Alexa, know a tomato how many times did you get people?
00:34:50
Alexis
ah
00:34:54
Plant People
It really gets people excited. And it does look very striking when you cut a tomato open and things growing in it.
00:34:58
Alexis
It is. It can be scary like if you don't know what it is.
00:35:01
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:02
Alexis
Yeah. And so it's just um the hormones ah in those seeds that make them right temperature, a bunch of different things can kind of come into that.
00:35:05
Plant People
Yeah. Temperature. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:10
Alexis
And it just – the seed says, hey, this feels like a pretty good place to start doing my thing and're even though they're not out because the seed probably you know really doesn't know if it's in a nice warm tomato.
00:35:22
Alexis
That's a moist environment.
00:35:23
brett
Totally.
00:35:24
Alexis
It's warm. It thinks it it could think it's in the soil, right? So if you think of it that way, um there's some other triggers that can go into it. But don't panic. You don't have a monster tomato.
00:35:36
Alexis
It's any plant can you know potentially do this. Any seed can potentially this.
00:35:40
brett
I've seen it in peppers before too.
00:35:42
Alexis
Huh?
00:35:42
brett
ah I've had peppers peppers cook before.
00:35:43
Plant People
Oh, have you been peppers?
00:35:43
Alexis
What?
00:35:44
Plant People
Yeah.
00:35:45
Alexis
Peppers. Yeah, yeah, I've seen it in peppers before too.
00:35:46
brett
Like bell peppers.
00:35:47
Plant People
Bell peppers.
00:35:47
Alexis
Solanaceous crops especially seem to be digging that in, but in the summer especially.
00:35:47
Plant People
Yeah, that's right.
00:35:51
brett
Ready to go.
00:35:52
Alexis
Yeah, they they're like, let's go, baby. We got one chance.
00:35:54
brett
mean
00:35:55
Alexis
So Vivipary.
00:35:55
brett
Yeah. Endless summer.
00:35:58
Alexis
And that one will make you seem really smart when, you know, your aunt posted on Facebook and is freaking out.
00:35:58
brett
Let's go.
00:36:02
brett
Vipery. It's
00:36:03
Alexis
You can be like, actually, it's Vivipary.
00:36:06
brett
technically the dressage horse Vi Vipery caused that to happen.
00:36:10
Plant People
Some of these terminal terms are pretty wild and that's a good one. That's a really good one.
00:36:14
Alexis
there
00:36:14
brett
one note One that we said earlier that we did not clarify that may be worthwhile when we were talking about leaves and is the word node.
Nodes and Internodes in Plant Growth
00:36:26
Alexis
Mm-hmm. We use that a lot.
00:36:27
Plant People
One of the most important concepts. Yep.
00:36:29
Alexis
Yes.
00:36:30
brett
And this is not social network analysis where, for instance, Ray knows a lot of people and so he functions as a node within that. But it's kind of similar. It's a point where lots of different things can and do come off.
00:36:40
Plant People
Yeah.
00:36:41
brett
but
00:36:41
Plant People
Point of differentiation.
00:36:41
Alexis
I didn't know that was used that way.
00:36:43
brett
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:43
Alexis
I'm learning about pop culture things.
00:36:47
brett
Yeah. Social network analysis, baby, that, you know, you have these, these things where like, um, you know, like for instance, Alexis, you are now a node between the extension agent community and also the, like kind of campus employees community or something like that.
00:36:49
Plant People
Venn diagrams and all that.
00:36:59
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:37:03
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:37:04
brett
Um, but on a plant, which is cool, always cooler, uh,
00:37:04
Alexis
Gotcha.
00:37:08
Alexis
Okay. Totally.
00:37:09
brett
it's I mean, generally it's like where you see that the leaves or buds are attached to a plant, that's sort of like a node.
00:37:16
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:37:17
brett
And so ah the... What you'll also hear along with that is the inter node, which is literally just the space between nodes. And where where you can observe that is that like you'll have a branch, particularly if a tree is growing pretty quickly or a plant's growing pretty quickly, you'll have some leaves that are coming out of it.
00:37:34
brett
And then there'll be a space on the stem and there'll be another leaf coming out of it or another set of leaves or whatever coming out of it.
00:37:38
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:37:39
Plant People
Deep axle.
00:37:40
brett
So the nodes are where those leaves are coming out and there will be at the base of that leaf at the axle. Is that right?
00:37:49
Plant People
defax on
00:37:50
brett
At the axle, this is the angled space between there. There will be a little bud that will often form that can either that can could become a new branch or whatever. But anyway, the space between is called the internode space. The actual area where it comes out is called the node. This is particularly important for things like uh pruning it's also important for things like propagation because you you sort of want to pay attention to where the nodes are because um they yeah if you just sort of cut off a dead stick with no node or anything on it and and put it in it's not really necessarily gonna do anything i mean so some stuff like
00:38:08
Plant People
Very important. Oh yeah.
00:38:10
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:38:22
Alexis
Yeah. That node is your hub. It's your hub of there's a lot of um hormones local um located there that are just waiting to be given direction. and so But what I mean by that is um they they can become roots, they can become a branch, they can become florals, they can you know they can become a leaf.
00:38:33
Plant People
Yeah.
00:38:42
Alexis
you know There's a bunch of different things. And so The environment um might dictate that, you know, the plant the species itself. But that's your that's your little hub of all of all the good stuff is on that note.
00:38:53
Plant People
Lots of sales that are just waiting.
00:38:53
Alexis
it's ah
00:38:55
Plant People
Yep.
00:38:55
Alexis
Yeah, sometimes it's like a little bit of a swollen area, especially on trees. You'll notice like kind of these little swollen rings going up the branch. But yeah, that's your that's your main hub of goods.
00:39:05
Plant People
And that that affects everything on plants.
00:39:05
brett
Also, yeah, everything.
00:39:07
Plant People
I mean, it's crazy to form everything. Yeah.
00:39:09
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:39:10
brett
Well, and like you if you are, let's say that you or someone you know is ah somewhat of an amateur arborist and you have cut off a tree limb and you just cut it off at a random spot, you will see, and you could actually see it in the bark, could see it, ah but that it will often, if you just cut it in a random spot, it will die back, but only to a certain point.
00:39:19
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:39:30
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:39:31
Plant People
Yeah.
00:39:32
brett
And then it will sort of cut off all the resources. And so you'll have a tip of that thing that you cut off. It's all brown and degrading and dried out, but the rest of it, it'll send, it can send out new shoots. Cause again, at that node, there's all this opportunity for stuff to grow, but that's why when you're pruning it's recommended to cut up close to the node so that the tree can just wrap its tissue around that, heal it and grow rather than having this dead thing out.
00:39:43
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:39:54
Alexis
Wound would.
00:39:54
brett
and I think to.
00:39:55
Alexis
That's another use of those hormones. It says, oh, I have been injured.
00:39:57
Plant People
Yeah.
00:39:58
Alexis
I must become a band-aid now.
00:40:00
Plant People
I mean, a few if you ever wanted to make more plants more compact, whether it's a garden mum or your basil plant, well all the only thing you're doing is manipulating um that node-internode relationship.
00:40:00
Alexis
It's crazy.
00:40:12
Plant People
You're pinching down to a stem that's got you know two other little stems. You're pinching off the internode down close to the node, and then that one stem coming up makes two stems.
00:40:23
Plant People
So you get a more compact interaction. And it's amazing. You do that with bays on, gosh, you got a three foot wide plant if you just keep pinching it when a stem grows up and you pinch it down to another.
00:40:31
Alexis
That's really big in cut flower world. like a I would say 75% or more, that's probably really low, of cut flowers are pinched in some way.
00:40:34
Plant People
Is it? Yeah, I figured that makes sense.
00:40:43
Alexis
like That's a term. And so we're removing that. It's called the apical meristem, which is that tip, that node at the top
Pinching Techniques for Growth
00:40:50
Alexis
that is...
00:40:50
brett
Like the apex, the apex of it, the apical.
00:40:51
Alexis
It's the apex, yeah, it's called the apical merosem. You're pinching that off, and that means to a node, and then that node is like, oh, I got to grow two. And so every basically every time you pinch, you grow two. And then cut flowers.
00:41:04
Alexis
We might do a pinch early before anything blooms, but then every time you're cutting, that's why we say, um we tell people who are growing cuts to cut really deeply, because every time you're cutting, in theory, you're cutting it kind of back to a node, right?
00:41:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:41:20
Alexis
And you're doing a pinch with every time you harvest. And so you're pinching and then boom, you get two stems for every one stem you cut. Obviously the plant has to be healthy, blah, blah, blah. But like, that's the basic theory.
00:41:30
Alexis
And so by cutting low, you get nice long stems when you get those next set of two stems.
00:41:36
brett
Yeah.
00:41:36
Plant People
Yeah, the golden rule of pruning is always, it's one thing all over and over again.
00:41:36
brett
Yeah.
00:41:40
Plant People
And it's this concept Brett brought up, nodes and internodes, but you always prune back to a living point. Well, what's a living point? Well, that's a node. It's ah a point where it has all these cells that are ready to do something.
00:41:48
Alexis
Yeah.
00:41:51
Plant People
So you, yeah.
00:41:51
Alexis
We usually like, yeah, we keep it easy and we say cut back to a branch um or or the or the trunk, which is you know essentially one big node, but we'll say cut back to another branch, you know and but what we're saying is cut back to a node um is really the the science behind it.
00:41:59
Plant People
Main trunk. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:07
brett
Right.
00:42:07
Plant People
Yeah. I leave him. Yeah. Yep.
00:42:11
brett
And sometimes you can tell where the node is and sometimes it's a little hard, like, especially if the buds are really small, if it's out of leaf, you know, if you're cutting it in early, it can be hard or it can be kind of intimidating, but like I,
00:42:11
Plant People
Yep.
00:42:13
Plant People
It's hard to know.
00:42:15
Alexis
Yeah.
00:42:17
Plant People
Yeah.
00:42:20
brett
like when I was printing, I was printing some red buds out front this year and I i cut them back to a node, but it was not in at the, it wasn't back to a branch. So it, for a while it looks dumb because it's a stick cut off with this little bud at the end, but then it grows and everyone knows that I'm the one laughing now.
00:42:31
Plant People
Yeah. who But you look for the buds.
00:42:35
brett
Yeah, that's right.
00:42:35
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah. but And you know, it's interesting in the apple world.
00:42:37
brett
um
00:42:39
Plant People
Um, when my father had an orchard in the East part the state, uh, Even before I came along, i guess it was an uncommon if they weren were pruning apple trees, you know, go up and see the the guys damage, you know, these ah bud areas with their thumb.
00:42:54
Plant People
And they were directing branching because they would damage that growing point area. And that trauma would cause branches to break in the direction of that trauma. And so they would just take their thumbnails and they totally controlled the growth of the tree with their thumbnail.
00:43:10
Plant People
They would cut branches, and they went when they wanted a bud to break to the left or right,
00:43:10
Alexis
That's crazy.
00:43:15
Plant People
to direct, you know, outward growing trees to get more sunlight penetration. He would just take his thumbnail up there and damage that a little bit.
00:43:21
Alexis
At the node.
00:43:22
Plant People
And finally I asked him and he said, well, that's what I'm doing. He said, I'm, you know, the oxens of the plant. And he, he like put it in terms a certain way, but I looked it up years later and that's what he was doing.
00:43:32
Plant People
He was kind of ah disrupting the flow and that area of plant compounds, but they just did it
00:43:39
Alexis
And so it's, so the, the branch is going to go towards the wound because it's going to like seal that or it's going to go away from it.
00:43:40
Plant People
Yeah.
00:43:46
Plant People
Part of it is with the flow of oxen. It has to do with that. Part of it is the trauma that I learned. So it's a combination of the two things together. And now they probably didn't look at it.
00:43:54
Alexis
Oxens are those hormones I mentioned.
00:43:56
Plant People
term Yeah. That's what the, the, the flow of hormones, they probably didn't look at it in botanical terms. They just knew that it worked. So you can manipulate bud break, you know, limb differentiation through that.
00:44:03
brett
Mm-hmm.
00:44:03
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:44:09
Plant People
i don't know, Brett, does that get into any, I'd be surprised if that didn't get into some bonsai kind of work stuff.
00:44:14
brett
It does. There's actually this really fascinating podcast about...
00:44:15
Plant People
Yeah.
00:44:19
brett
So so in bonsai, you're generally... When you're doing bonsai itself, you've got a tree that's already got most of its branch structure developed. But there's this whole problem of how do we get trees to the point where they would make really cool bonsai?
00:44:31
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:44:32
brett
And so there's these people who were... They there they were out in Colorado doing some... ah Called Telperian farms, if we have any fans of... um literature, ah but the um they they grew trees into finish boneai But in the process of that, they have to like basically try to get branches to pop wherever they want it to go.
00:44:55
Plant People
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:44:56
brett
He didn't use the nail technique, but like there's there's things of where like you you would take um ah a particular shoot and at a time of year
Plant Passive Transport Systems
00:45:05
brett
where a tree was had a capacity to put on a second flush of growth, you would remove something with apical dominance or reduce it.
00:45:12
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:45:12
brett
in order to then drive energy back to the, be able to create buds in other places. You expose that to sunlight. You can also do things like, um, or oriented, like the way that a branch is oriented will determine, um, how exactly it's exactly.
00:45:25
Plant People
And that's manipulating that chemical. Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:29
brett
Cause that's the thing that people don't necessarily understand about plants. I think sometimes is that, um, There's no like pump that is moving things. It's entirely this really interesting and beautiful network of like passive plumbing that is happening where like up at the leaves, the air you know blows across the leaf and it creates the tiniest little sucking, like sucking on a straw that puts pressure on the whole thing.
00:45:55
Alexis
moisture loss yeah
00:45:56
brett
Yeah. And then the, the exactly the moisture loss up there is like sucking it up. So that pulls it up through the roots and it's the same way. And then the, the, the, the flow of how the chemicals move throughout the plant are in part determined on whether it's upright and vertical, whether it's out, whether it seems like it's the highest or whatever.
00:46:12
brett
And that there's all kinds of stuff, but it's a very common thing to try to, because we're trying to keep it small to reduce that apical dominance, but also try to manipulate how and where buds come out.
00:46:23
brett
There's also grad. We also, they also do grafting and stuff like that too, but.
00:46:26
Plant People
So much science behind that, because if you go too much or too little, it doesn't work properly. If like, ah if you go too much to the horizontal and then you have water sprouts because you lose the total apical dominance, even though the terminal bud is still present because it messes up the gravitational flow of the oxen, which is interesting.
00:46:35
brett
Right.
00:46:44
brett
yeah
00:46:46
Plant People
It's crazy. And in fruit, we manage that a lot.
00:46:47
brett
It also has to do with how how old the tree is and how like vigorously it's growing.
00:46:50
Alexis
you
00:46:51
brett
that's That's a part of the equation across the board.
00:46:52
Plant People
yeah.
00:46:54
brett
You know, like I would be willing to prune something that's a little bit more vigorous and strong because I know it's going to bounce back.
Bonsai Techniques and Control
00:47:01
brett
But but the part of the point I was going to say with that was the the guy who was talking about doing this, he was sort of called in as the tree whisperer at this farm to do a lot of pruning and stuff like that.
00:47:10
brett
And he had spent like 30 years in the ah nursery and landscape industry. you know So that's where he cut his teeth on just knowing how plants work and these kind of exactly like what you're talking about.
00:47:21
Plant People
It's fascinating.
00:47:22
brett
I bet he's familiar with the thumbnail trick.
00:47:24
Plant People
But ah you'll see that they'll do limb spreading in orchards.
00:47:24
brett
Mm
00:47:27
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:47:27
Plant People
And it's that's more common in the old semi-dwarf orchard.
00:47:30
Plant People
It's still common. But part of that is you're managing density just with the angle of the branch being just right. you well It makes a strong branch, but you're managing the angle just right to have minimal water sprouts, but also a strong
00:47:37
brett
hmm.
Practical Botany Applications
00:47:44
Plant People
branching angle.
00:47:44
Plant People
And there's a whole science behind that that's pretty fascinating.
00:47:49
brett
Yeah.
00:47:49
Plant People
It's good stuff. Yeah.
00:47:50
brett
It's even to the point like so if I'm if I'm growing a tree and I'll stop talking about bonsai, but if I'm If I'm growing a tree and I want a branch to get thicker, what I want it to do is to elongate. However, I might want that branch to come out from the tree and go downward and go up.
00:48:01
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:48:05
brett
But what I will do is I will shape the branch with wire and then the tip, I will always point back upward. And that is enough to, to, ah to sort of stimulate that oxen production and and, and trigger it to extend.
00:48:11
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:48:18
brett
And if I don't do that, it doesn't grow the same. It's very, very cool.
00:48:21
Alexis
yeah that's uh something like in vanilla production so it will not form flowers unless the vine is upright and so you can have like a really you know, beautiful vanilla and it, and it's cause it's a vine, right?
00:48:31
brett
hu
00:48:31
Plant People
Hmm. Hmm.
00:48:37
Alexis
It's kind of crazy. They don't always crawl. They can sprawl. And so if, you know, you got one going down, it won't form any pods, but if you get it upright, um those flowers will form and can be pollinated to create vanilla bean.
00:48:48
brett
Whoa.
00:48:48
Plant People
Hmm.
00:48:49
Alexis
I know. Yeah. I went, I learned that.
00:48:50
brett
What the heck?
00:48:51
Alexis
I was like, what?
00:48:53
Plant People
Probably a similar type of concept that we're talking about because that's the way it wants to be.
00:48:56
Alexis
Yeah. It's just, it's the hormones form.
00:48:58
Plant People
Yeah.
00:48:59
Alexis
um I guess it just knows the, you know, plant has, a place to hold on and get light and nutrients and all that other thing.
00:49:05
Plant People
Yeah. Maybe it's an indicator.
00:49:07
Alexis
But yeah.
00:49:08
brett
Man, that's cool.
00:49:08
Plant People
Botany. Just when you think you know it all, then you're like, I'm just scratching the leaf axle.
00:49:14
brett
ah
00:49:14
Plant People
just Just getting started. Yeah. It's ah it's it's fun. ah Botany can be pretty fun. It can be kind of heavy at times because it's it is vocabulary heavy.
00:49:22
Alexis
who There's so much vocab.
00:49:25
Plant People
Yeah. But they just the concepts themselves are pretty fascinating from a very practical standpoint as, you know, just gardeners or commercial growers Particularly for home gardeners, it's just ah endlessly fascinating with how we get, you know, fruit production or berry production or floral crops or how do we make this basil thick or there's cut flower thick and full and yeah just all the things that we've talked about today.
00:49:34
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:49:49
Plant People
It's pretty fascinating. It's good stuff.
00:49:51
Alexis
Yeah, it's all realistic.
00:49:52
Plant People
Good stuff.
00:49:53
Alexis
That's what it's what I like as a gardener.
00:49:54
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:55
Alexis
I like the the realistic
Engagement and Learning in Botany
00:49:57
Alexis
ones. you know I mean, Megaspore Mother Cell sounds really cool, but like I'm not, other than my sweet band that I'm going to have, it's not super relevant to making sure I can grow things well, right?
00:50:09
Alexis
But knowing that my cover crop can kill my seed with allelopathy or, you know, knowing knowing what how to identify a black walnut um based on the leaf margin and the petiole and the compound leaf so that I don't plant my tomatoes there and have allelopathy is important and practical, right?
00:50:29
Alexis
So... Hopefully you guys got something beneficial out of that. If there are more terms that you're like, I have heard this. I don't really understand it. What is the difference between these? Please leave us. you You can send us an email that you can find that in the show notes. You can shoot us a message on Instagram at Hort Culture Podcast. um You can also leave us, as you're leaving us five stars and say, I want more botany terms, please tell me about XYZ.
00:50:55
Alexis
You can do that. It does help the show. I know it gets gets's annoying. All podcasts, every podcast I listen to you always says that, but we say it for a reason. It does please the algorithm and hopefully more people will find our podcasts this way and and learn some new botany terms.
00:51:11
Alexis
But anyways.
00:51:11
brett
And we're not like other podcasts. We're cool podcasts.
00:51:14
Alexis
We're the cool podcast. Yeah, we're the cool plant people. um But we appreciate you guys being here with us.
00:51:18
Plant People
All plant people are cool.
00:51:21
Alexis
And we hope that you will, join you we hope that you'll contact us and we hope you'll join us next time. Have a great one.