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+15 +1
80-year-old wonder: U-M's agave plant on verge of blooms
Once-in-a-lifetime blooms on an 80-year-old American agave plant at the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens have yet to open, but anticipation for the big event has drawn huge crowds to the Ann Arbor gardens.
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+9 +1
Japan scientists find ageing cure - for flowers
Japanese scientists say they have found a way to slow down the ageing process in flowers by up to a half, meaning bouquets could remain fresh for much longer. Researchers at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organisation in Tsukuba, east of Tokyo, said they had found the gene believed to be responsible for the short shelf-life of flowers in one Japanese variety of morning glory.
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+1 +1
Agave that will bloom only once begins to do so
A flowering process 80 years in the making is finally underway. An American agave plant housed at the University of Michigan since 1934 started to bloom Tuesday afternoon. The blooms so far are "low-key" with yellow anthers sticking out, Joe Mooney, a spokesman for Matthaei Botanical Gardens, said Wednesday. The anther is the part of the stamen where pollen is produced.
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+22 +1
Rising CO2 Increases the Size of Poison Ivy Plants
Better grab your calamine lotion. More CO2 means bigger poison ivy plants.
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+24 +1
Stop Buying Into the Antioxidant Myth
Plants have long been lauded for their health-promoting antioxidants. But recent research upends that thinking—broccoli is good for you precisely because it stresses your body.
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+12 +1
Kale, cauliflower, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts are all the same species of plant
Kale has become remarkably popular. Once a little-known speciality crop, its meteoric rise is now the subject of national news segments. Some experts are predicting that kale salads will soon be on the menus at TGI Friday's and McDonald's. Cabbage is a different story. Per capita consumption of it peaked way back in the 1920s, when the average American ate 22 pounds of it per year. Nowadays, we eat about eight pounds, most of it disguised as cole slaw or sauerkraut.
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+24 +1
Scientists Try to Build a Tomato That Grows 24 Hours a Day
Tomato plants need their beauty sleep. If they don't get about eight hours of darkness, yellow spots appear on their leaves and the plants start to die. This isn't typically a problem for casual gardeners, but for growers who work overtime to increase yield by putting the plants under artificial light, the necessary time-out slows production.
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+19 +1
Plants in offices increase happiness and productivity
Offices devoid of pictures, souvenirs or any other distractions are "the most toxic space" you can put a human into, say psychologists in a paper published on Monday, which says workers perform better when household plants are added to workplaces.
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+16 +1
Fukushima radiation still poisoning insects
Butterflies are developing physical abnormalities, raising questions about the long-term impact of the disaster
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+17 +1
Philippines 'breaks world tree-planting record'
Philippine officials said Saturday they had set a new world record for the most trees planted in an hour, with 3.2 million seedlings sown as part of a national forestation programme.
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+20 +1
Plants Can Tell When They're Being Eaten
Eating a leaf off a plant may not kill it, but that doesn't mean the plant likes it. The newest study to examine the intelligence (or at least behavior) of plants finds that plants can tell when they're being eaten - and send out defenses to stop it from happening.
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+18 +2
The Loneliest Plant In The World
Millions and millions of years ago, the world was full of strange looking trees. Now, one of these tree species has dwindled to a single male plant who is desperately in need of a mate.
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+16 +1
Plants Know When They’re Being Eaten and They Don’t Appreciate it
Vegetarians and vegans pay heed, new research shows plants know when they’re being eaten. And they don’t like it. That plants possess an intelligence is not new knowledge, but according to Modern Farmer, a new study from the University of Missouri shows plants can sense when they are being eaten and send out defense mechanisms to try and stop it from happening.
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+23 +1
The high-stakes world of rare-plant theft
The theft of endangered and rare flowers has led botanical gardens to go to extreme measures to protect their plants, locking them down with cables and installing CCTV. But is this enough to preserve such species?
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Analysis+20 +1
The Mind-Boggling Math of Migratory Beekeeping
31 billion honeybees plus 810,000 acres of almond trees equals 700 billion almonds—and one looming agricultural crisis
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+21 +1
How Dangerous is Devil's Helmet?
A gardener died after apparently coming into contact with Aconitum, a poisonous plant known as Devil's Helmet
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+18 +1
Hallucinogenic Plants May Be Key to Decoding Ancient Southwestern Paintings, Expert Says
Dozens of rock art sites in southern New Mexico, recently documented for the first time, are revealing unexpected botanical clues that archaeologists say may help unlock the meaning of the ancient abstract paintings.
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+14 +1
The Original Southern Peanut Was Thought To Be Extinct - Now One Farmer Is Bringing It Back
Charleston is a city steeped in nostalgia, where trailing Spanish moss and antebellum architecture transport visitors to another time. But for a true time-traveling experience, one need look no further than an unassuming plot of land in the Lowcountry, just outside of the city. In one field grows the now largely forgotten Jimmy Red corn, originally used in moonshine and grits. In another grows Carolina Gold rice, the grandfather of today’s American long-grain varieties.
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+23 +1
The Mysterious Genetics of the Four-Leaf Clover
Like every other trait on every other living thing, a clover's lucky fourth leaf sprouts from DNA. But understanding the clover genome won't necessarily help you find one.
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+21 +1
An argument for why we should be eating weeds (the edible kind)
What is the first food that comes to mind when you hear "foraged"? My guess is that a mushroom came to mind. While it's true that most mushrooms are grown in the wild, there's an abundance of other wild plant foods that are much easier to find and identify. Just because these wild plants are out there, does that mean we should eat them? My colleagues and I of Berkeley Open Source Food (BOSF) are arguing yes.
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