Fertigation, Notorious Neonicotinoids & Maca

“What does amaze me is how every year people are amazed to discover that summer is hot,’ exclaimed Ogden Nash. The horticultural fraternity knows of this all too well. August then is the traditional month in which gardeners can take things easy. Sit back in the shade on patio, deck or under a tree and dream of gardens yet to come . . . This is reason enough to leave the spouse to take care of the mowing, weeding, deadheading and similar chores that continue to burden the grounds caring householder. What else can one do in a season that has been defined as nothing much on radio, television or most girls at the beach?

Diversion No. 1

Black thumb? She was so dumb she thought spirea was a social disease

Can we solve lawn irrigation and fertilizer problems by ‘fertigation,’ drip irrigation and decentralized water treatment? New Mexico State University turfgrass expert Bernd Leinauer, along with his colleague Elena Sevostianova, believes it is possible. Cities presently remove the nitrate from wastewater in an expensive and energy-intensive step to prevent pollution of surface- and ground water. “But from a turf perspective that doesn't make a while lot of sense,” Leinauer says, since golf course managers (and homeowners) end up applying mineral nitrate fertilizers to keep turf thriving. Fertigation is a method of supplying fertilizers to plants though irrigation water (fertilize and irrigate at the same time). Drip irrigation delivers water directly to plant roots underground, instead of sprinkling plants from above, the researchers explained in a recent issue of the journal Crop Science. In brief, they suggest supplying effluent to such irrigation systems from decentralized treatment systems at a subdivision level. Because drip systems put water directly into the soil, Leinauer says, homeowners wouldn’t come in contact with the effluent – and lawns would stay lush and green.

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Diversion No. 2

Previous studies have suggested that plant growth can be influenced by sound and that plants respond to wind and touch. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri, in a collaboration that brings together audio and chemical analysis, have determined that plants respond to the sounds that caterpillars make when eating plants and that the plants respond with more defences, they report in the journal Oecologica.

Ontario may be moving where other jurisdictions fear to tread. The province has said it is moving to reduce or eliminate the now notorious neonicotinoids – a class of chemicals implicated in the deaths of bees. The announcement was timely. A day later, a study published in the British Ecological Society’s journal Functional Ecology found that bumblebees exposed to neonicotinoids impairs their ability to learn how to gather food. Matters were made worse when the bumblebees were also exposed to pyrethroid, another popular pesticide, resulting in the destruction of entire colonies. Elsewhere British and Dutch research blames the same neonicotinoids for reductions in common songbirds – a second ‘Silent Spring.’

Diversion No. 3

Landscape gardener Andy Cameron, 27, asked Kayleigh Hawthorn, 25, to check if he had missed a patch of grass in the grounds of the Erskine Bridge Hotel in Renfrewshire, Scotland only for her to see his massive message: Marry Me? He is a contractor at the hotel and the couple met when Kayleigh joined the staff a year ago. She said yes [Sources: The Daily Mirror, Paisley Daily Express).

Reputed to have aphrodisiacal properties, the South American maca, Lepdium meyenii, is making news after it was revealed that model Miranda Kerr adds it to her smoothies. Research by China’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology has found that the powdered root of the plant works as an antidepressant. Maca has previously been credited with boosting energy and libido, and clearing up acne advised The Mail on Sunday. A member of the cabbage family, Cruciferae, it is native to the high altitudes in the Peruvian Andes around Lake Junin. Traditionally it has been raised there as root vegetable similar in appearance to a giant turnip. The leaves are also edible for livestock. The local Quechua know it as ayak chichita and ayak willku. The root – technically an enlarged hypercotyl – may come in a variety of colours though for a commercial preparation of the ground root white is preferred. It is definitely an acquired taste although warriors in the Andes are said to have been fed quantities to increase their manliness. First scientifically described in 1843, the common name is derived from the Spanish, maca-maca. It is available in health food stores.

Diversion No. 4

Poisonous hemlock, Conium maculatum, infamous as the poison that killed Socrates – is taking root around the Victoria, B.C., prompting a safety warning. “It’s important to get it in people’s awareness,” said Ken Marr, curator of botany as the Royal B.C. Museum, told The Times Colonist. The invasive species from Europe is already established in other parts of Canada and the U.S.

Every week brings more extraordinary botanical discoveries from around the world. A new study by Agnes Dellinger from the Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research at the University of Vienna and her co-authors in the Cell Press journal Current Biology reveals that Axinaea species of small tree from the montane rainforests of Central and South America uses a bellows organ to blast pollen at pollinating tanagers and other birds. The birds tolerate this unseemingly behaviour to obtain a tempting and nutritious morsel of food, the male reproductive organ. When the bird seizes the bulbous stamen in their beaks, they receive a blast of pollen from the plant’s complex bellows organ. Further foraging by the dusted bird deposits the pollen on a receptive female organ elsewhere in an avian version of a-courting we will go.