Coiled tendril of grape around supporting material
Climbing plants deploy outstanding grasping strategies to climb using extremely flexible, sensitive, and filiform robotic organs known as 'tendrils'. It has been perceived that tendrils have 360° in-built sensors to locate supports around them for the plant to climb. Some plant tendrils (e.g. grapes) have very strong natural designs and materials that result in a strong death-grip like 'Geckos' lizards. It has been physically observed that grape tendrils' are so strong and woody in nature that after drying, they remain attach to props.
Different plants use varied twisting and untwisting maneuvers to climb and cling around existing supporting material. If there are props at a distance, tendrils grow spirally and further projectile (jump in particular direction and angle with particular speed) using plant water & sap to control maneuvers and grasp.
It has also been observed plants determine and modify shapes, sizes, thickness, length of tendrils after recognizing existing supporting material around them. Generally, apical new tendrils of cucurbits grow straight and without twisted coils, and auxiliary tendrils are of various sizes and shapes with coils to climb around.
Apical straight tendrils in sponge gourd
Twisted and coiled auxiliary tendrils in sponge gourd
Bitter gourd tendril trailing around climbing and untwisted coils
Apical tendrils in summer squash
Different plants have been evolved using all these innovations and technique. Traditional growers have observed and applied all these inspiring designs and innovations from agriculture to architecture. These bioinspired designs are further being studied and deployed under mainstream of biomimicry to design numerous industrial materials to intelligent robotic applications.
The bio-mimetic movements and coiled structures of plant tendrils have been studied and deployed to design fabricating strategy for crude oil cleanup to new concepts of robot grasping. it is also expected that the unique structures, shapes, movements can help to design numerous applications in energy conservation, tissue engineering, intelligent devices and smart textile & sports materials in the near future.
This article is result of personal observations and imagination of Vipesh Garg, and proof read by Premila Parera from Urban Leaves, India.
Poor grain-filling is a common physiological problem that numerous gardeners encounter while growing corn in their food gardens. It is a condition of poor and uneven grain/kernel formation on the ear as a result of unsuccessful fertilisation of ovules due to poor pollination. It is influenced by many factors at various stages of growth of the corn plant. Some of the common factors are below
1. Heat stress and less humidity
2. Drought and lack of irrigation
Heat stress and less humidity
In summers, particularly due to high heat and less moisture in the air, pollen viability decreases and pollen-carrying silk hairs desiccate leading to unsuccessful pollination and fertilisation, resulting in poor grain formation and smaller kernel size.
Drought and lack of irrigation
Due to scanty irrigation, particularly at the silking stage and ear formation, plants get stressed, resulting in poor pollination, unsuccessful fertilisation and abortion of developing grain/kernels causing uneven grain formation.
Ensure regular irrigation particularly at the silking stage and ear formation.
Hand/manual pollinate to enhance successful pollination and fertilisation.
Sow corn just before or during the rainy seasons when there is optimum temperature and moisture in the air.
Use heirloom/often-pollinated local seeds which are more resilient and adaptive to local climate conditions
Technical trivia
Corn has separate male and female inflorescence (group of flowers). The female inflorescence is known as cob/ear on which grains develop and the male inflorescence is known as tessel.
Silking is the stage at which silky hairs emerge from the cob. These receive pollen to fertilise the ovum for successful grain formation.
Ear is the stalk on which grains/kernels form in an arrangement.
This small piece of information is collected by Vipesh Garg and proof-read by Premila Parera from Urban Leaves, Mumbai.
Red cotton bug is serious pest of red silk cotton trees. The nymphs and adults feed on emerging bolls and seeds of cotton family/malvacae and reduce the germination capacity of seeds.
I hunted some okra looking seeds of red silk cotton tree/semal at a park in Gurgaon in the June beginning when trees were at the fag end of fruiting and found heavy infestation of semal bug all across the park. Bugs were feeding and breeding on the fallen pods/balls of semal tree.
For more information of tree, click and read down below link
Red-pumpkin-beetles are voracious eaters of cucurbits and munch newly germinated 2-4 leaves stage cucurbits just in no time before you witness the economical demage. They love eating melons and gourds.
Taming them is not rocket-science or you do not need to lead the chemical war, few cultural methods and management practices will keep them at bay. Don't panic, handle them peacefully and they really look charming by the way, right!!! You simply need to understand their behavior. Once you get to know, taming them is not really tough-game.
Their grubs remain in soil and start eating as cucurbits start germinated in the very early stage. They really relish the taste of all cucurbits except bitter-gourd. They might be not suffered from diabetes unlike human that they do not like eating bitter-gourd!!.
Few strategies to tame them
Sprinkle ash (dung ash/soft-wood ash) on germinated plants.
Soil solarization in hot-months to kill the grubs in soil.
Spray neem oil as precautionary method once in 3-5 days interval.
Manual collection and destructing them by putting under the soil in early stage.
Germinate seed ex-situ in nursery and transplant. Once plant start growing they don't feed much and plant has mechanism to bear the damage.
I am often being questioned to resolve the mealy-bug infestations in their aesthetic and food gardens by numerous people. Most of the time it is hibiscus/China-rose which is being infested and set the alarm bells ringing.
Pink hibiscus mealy-bug is serious pest of plants belonging to hibiscus/malvaceae family including edibles like okra and fiber cotton. This is major problem in warm-temperature days and in dry climate. It is pink coloured nymphs which suck the sap from plants. Even controlling mealy-bug infestations with harsh chemicals has been failed. The other way around applications of simple home-made/in-situ formulations do work well.
Why controlling/killing mealy-bug is challenging?
Simply, because it is thick-skinned insect with protective waxy layer/coating over the skin.
It is being devoid of fluid/blood means less watery.
Key to control
As mentioned it is being covered with thick protective waxy layer/coating and devoid of blood/fluid in body, application of alcohol and soap holds the key/Brahmastra. Alcohol would dissolve the wax layer and soap would penetrate and promote ex-osomosis, desiccating mealy-bugs to death.
Solutions/remedies
Wash/spray the infested plants with simply soap-water regularly. You may use 5 gm synthetic soap per liter water or boil 10-12 seeds kernels of soap-nut berries for organic soap water.
Take 100 gm rice powder 100 gm soap-nut powder/seed kernels. Get mixture boil in 1 liter water. Let it cool down and keep remain for minimum 3 days to ferment (rice starchy water would ferment to natural alcohol, right!!) Use 8-10 ml of solutions third day onward.
Mixture of 10 ml of drinkable alcohol and 50 ml concentrated soap-nut berries concentrated liquid could works well.
Mixed solution of 10 ml vinegar 10 gm jaggery/sugar per liter once in 3 days of water helps to ward-off ants from farming mealy-bugs (ants and mealy-bugs have symbiotic relationship. Ants help mealy-bug nymphs to transfer new branches and save from predator).
All solutions/remedies can be applied once in 3-7 days interval as per scale of infestation.
Historically, food has usually been grown both locally and in a decentralized system; in the form of kitchen/cottage gardens. Progressively we stopped growing food individually and began to trust the growing of safe and healthy food to someone else, or as the government’s responsibility.
Now that the major agricultural companies have demonstrated that they have no incentive to grow safe food or practice ecological sensibility, people are again reconsidering the value of growing their own food, using natural practices and traditional knowledge systems. We are witnessing a renaissance of food gardens, seed saving, converting kitchen biodegradable wastes into compost, cultivating indoor plants for fresh air and aesthetic soul-food, and even as part of school and community development programmes.
The emerging fields like biomimicry encourage us all to return to natural systems; this is not only useful for innovation in design but is also a lens to learn how plants grow naturally in a wide variety of ecosystems. There is an endless source of inspiration when we open our eyes to the brilliance of designs which nature has perfected through evolution over billions of years. Using nature’s guidance, we can grow a wide variety of food in a small space while also using less inputs — including physical labour.
Designing a system which imitates nature’s ability to decompose, store water and provide access to sunlight for as many plants as possible allows us to maximize our land, minimize our effort and ultimately yields far more tasty, healthy food — as well as medicine, fiber, fodder, fuel and producing clean air and water supply.
Designing low maintenance soil
If we cut any piece of so-called-soil (the upper layer of earth) straight down, we observed multiple layers, formed over the course of time, called the soil profile/horizon as demonstrated in this image:
Image providing by EarthCache & Park Friendly Caching
Second on the forest floors, where leaves are falling from treetops constantly, as well as twigs, old broken branches, flowers, seed pods and all sort of natural materials, this ‘organic matter’ accumulates and over time decomposes into what we call humus (dark-brown amorphous complex carbon ‘dirt’). This humus is destined to become topsoil, a substance full of rich minerals and vitamins which also retains water. Through the process of decay, dead matter transforms into food for insects, bacteria and fungi — supporting the health of the soil and naturally sustaining the soil ecosystem.
These features of soil-profile and forest floor could be emulated to cultivate low maintenance soil where we can grow food in-situ or in containers where there is not a lot of land to grow our food. Such designs could be easily replicated in raised beds or hugelkultur beds or to design low maintenance containers for public and community gardens where land, labour and personal attention are often scarce resources.
Designing low maintenance containers
Examples of some containers where you may grow your soil.
First layer: Drainage.
At the bottom of your container, put a layer of gravel and small stones/pebbles. This promotes adequate drainage and keeps roots from being damaged in case of over-irrigation and heavy rains. Second, this layer anchors deep rooted plants and provides minerals for the plants. Depending on the size and depth of your container, the drainage layer can be about 5–10% of the total height of container by volume.
Second layer: Carbon
This is a layer of ‘dry matter’. Any carbon rich material including garden leaf-litter, farm residue such as dry grass clippings/chaff, softwood twigs, or activated charcoal could be used.
Third layer: Nitrogen
Materials rich in nitrogen and low in carbon, e.g. kitchen waste, peels, tea leaves, chopped green manure, and fresh-animal dung can be placed over the carbon layer.
As we want to design low maintenance containers which does mean in practice is a system of design which requires zero-till, maximum intervals between subsequent irrigations, requiring far less external fertilization (effective micro-organisms such as compost tea may still be used at intervals), and effectively no weeding (particularly in zero-maintenance-containers). So, carbon-nitrogen layers functions as the heart of these zero-maintenance containers by acting as a micro-soil-ecosystem collectively.
Carbon-nitrogen layers decompose over a brief period, and act as a regenerative micro-ecosystem in your container. Over time, the volume of these layers would shrink and develop cracks in the growing layer above; promoting natural tillage, aeration and soil-activity.
Together, the decomposed carbon-nitrogen layers would take up 20–30% of the total height container. These layers are harder to accommodate in shallow containers, so choose a design with sufficient depth.
Fourth layer: Growing Medium
The growing medium layer could be designed using readily available local soil, compost and soil-amendments (e.g. natural calcium or other minerals) in adequate proportion. This is the main supportive layer where seeds or plants are being sown. This layer will use 50–60% total height of the container.
Fifth layer: Mulch
Mulch sits above the soil, around the area where seedlings/plants are growing. Mulching has multiple benefits; it retains moisture in the soil, regulates temperature, minimises conditions for weeds to grow and prevents damage caused by natural elements. No forest floor is left bare: why should our fields or garden beds look any different?
To cover the soil, you may wish to sow very short edible plants e.g. fenugreek, spinach, nasturtium, coriander or microgreens. Edible legumes such as alfalfa and fenugreek are particularly useful as a bio-mulch, since these plants fix nitrogen in the soil for the other plants to enjoy.
Alternatively, you can sprinkle any organic material e.g. dry grass clippings, broken egg shells, dry leaves, chopped straw etc, which will break down and feed the soil with further nutrients.
What value can this design offer you?
Many herbs, vegetables and edible shrubs can be grown in zero-maintenance containers.
These biomimicked solutions can be deployed to design numerous containers and soil-mediums for urban food gardening where land, labour and personal attention is limited.
You don’t have to interfere so much; let nature do most of the work and simply support it by checking the moisture and occasionally adding more mulch, diluted worm juice or compost tea. Simple!
There are hundreds of thousands of seeds.
Many of us are not even able to recognise the corresponding seeds of the food
we eat. The average botanist could at most identify some hundreds of them.
While studying agriculture in university formally, I passed some practical seed
identification exams. I observed that seeds from the same family look quite
similar; even those who deal with them on daily basis might get confused. But
the beauty of the seeds is that they never lose their identity.
One thing all seeds share in common, no
matter how similar or different they seem from each other, is that once they’re
put in soil they manifest their true identity. They are tiny but living
supercomputers, with sophisticated genetic information and programming. They know
the best times to germinate, flower, fruit and mature, and accommodate biotic
and abiotic challenges. They have inherited sensors which sense the optimum
temperature, light, humidity and other external conditions to pick the best
moment to open their winged cotyledons and fly into the sky.
Traditional communities have always
revered their seeds. They protected them throughout the ages and passed on the
strongest, tastiest and best seeds to each next generation, which are what we
now call heirloom or native seeds.
During this process, seeds also remembered
and adapted to the local climate, rain, drought, pest attacks and other
conditions which occurred during their life. The intelligence of the plant
modified their offspring to better handle all these conditions. This is why
local and heirloom seeds are more resilient to climate change and adversities
of climate.
It is also being demonstrated that seeds
have many sense capacities; detecting conditions of the soil, climate change,
people who raised them and the micro-climate where they are grown. They are, in
fact, more intelligent and responsive than we tend to consider. You may notice
that often, acquired seeds take time to acclimatize to new places. Doesn’t it
seem meta-physical in nature, to consider that seeds are tiny but living
supercomputers?
Save your local traditional seeds
Ask your elders for the plants which have
survived the green revolution and allow them to continue optimizing for their
environment. Swap seeds with other local gardeners so that you’re able to grow
those which have been surviving and thriving under unusual and extreme weather
conditions. In return, they will be there to nourish us as climate conditions
become more and more unpredictable.
It is this relationship between the
farmer, the seeds and the land which creates abundance. Yet if we don’t respect
the intelligence of our collaborators, how will that affect us? Perhaps we
already see the answer playing out each season when crops are failing.
By cherishing the intelligence and genius
of the local seeds, we can improve these statistics and once again live in
flourishing communities with diverse, delicious and well adapted food crops.
It all starts by honouring the potential
and the intelligence which each seed bears.
Collect and share these tiny
supercomputers! Support their evolution so that they may support ours. They are
the greatest gift, and by respecting what they have to offer, we can again live
in reverence and enthusiasm for their wisdom and capacity for advanced
regeneration.
This piece is written by Vipesh Garg with editing and contributions by Naomi
Joy Smith.
