February 28, 2025 • 44 mins
This episode is a delightful exploration of listener-submitted plant questions, offering insights into plant care, specific plant challenges, and the relationship between environmental conditions and plant health.
- Overview of the seasonal Q&A format
- Discussion on controlling bindweed and morning glory
- Humidity’s nuanced effect on plant health
- Benefits of indoor plants on air quality
- Recommended houseplants for low-light conditions
- Host reflections on wisdom and community in plant care
If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into plant knowledge, be sure to share with your friends or leave us a review!
As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It helps the show keep growing and reaching more people! As a bonus, if you review Planthropology on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser and send me a screenshot of it, I'll send you an awesome sticker pack!
Planthropology is written, hosted, and produced by Vikram Baliga. Our theme song is "If You Want to Love Me, Babe, by the talented and award-winning composer, Nick Scout. Midroll tunes are by Rooey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is up?
Plant people it's time oncemore for the Plantthropology
podcast, the show where we diveinto the lives and careers of
some very cool plant people tofigure out why they do what they
do and what keeps them comingback for more.
I'm Vikram Blakey, your hostand your humble guide in this
journey through the sciences and, as always, my dearest friends.
I am so excited to be with youtoday.
It is winter Q&A time.
(00:21):
You'll know that every now andthen, whether it's once a month
or once a quarter and it's goingto be once a quarter, I'm going
to tell you seasonally, we'regoing to do Q&A episodes and I
solicit questions from socialmedia.
I get people to ask me theirburning plant or education or
whatever questions, and then Itry my best to answer them.
So we've got a good set fortoday and everything from
(00:46):
actually a lot about houseplants, lots of questions about
houseplants today, which is cool.
So we'll talk about that.
We'll talk about humidity,we'll talk about rooftop
gardening and even just what dowe do?
What do we do?
How do we do the thing as we go?
What do we do?
We'll talk about that too.
So buckle up, grab yourfavorite house plant and give it
a nice little pat on the headand get ready for episode 113 of
(01:10):
the Plantthropology podcast,winter 2025 Q&A.
Okay so, first off, as I wentback and listened to that intro
(01:43):
section, I said my name so weirdI don't know how to feel about
that my name I say it a lot.
My name is Vikram Baliga, notwhatever.
I said through a mouthful ofoatmeal or whatever.
I don't know what happened.
It was weird, it's okay, we'regoing to get through it.
Okay, lots of questions todayand I want to just jump into
(02:05):
them, so I've got time to do allof them as we get to this
episode.
It's maybe a long one anyway,maybe short and we're gonna find
out.
Okay.
So the first one is from myfriend, rui, and if you have a
chance to look him up, he makessome sick lo-fi dad beats and
the work he does goes to promotewildflower conservation and
natural conservation.
He buys wildflower seeds anddoes a lot of great work.
(02:28):
You may be hearing from him inthe not too distant future.
So Rui, on Threads, asked whyis Morning Glory and Bindweed
such a diabolical I'm editing alittle bit here plant, a
diabolical plant.
I can't use some of the otherwords he asked.
That's okay.
It's a family-friendly show,rui.
(02:48):
Anyway, why are bindweed andmorning glory so diabolical?
And that is such a goodquestion?
And it's actually for a coupleof different reasons.
Now, if you don't know whatthese are, I'm going to give you
a second to pull out your phonemachine and Google morning
glory, okay.
So now that you've done thatand you've got a good look at
how honestly very pretty morningglories are, let's talk about
(03:10):
why they are so difficult tocontrol.
Now, both of these morningglory and bindweed which, by the
way, bindweed is perennialmorning glory Most morning
glories in our part of NorthAmerica or throughout North
America, tends to be an annual.
It's not very cold, hardy, itgoes dormant, it dies back to
(03:30):
the ground or it just dies outcompletely in the winter.
So for most of the UnitedStates and most places north of
the tropical regions of theworld, it's going to be an
annual plant world.
It's going to be an annualplant.
It completes life cycle veryquickly and because of that it
does a few things that give itreally great survival mechanisms
.
Right, it's got some greatstrategies for survival and
(03:52):
growing.
For one, it produces seedsprolifically.
Now you've probably seen there'sthese bright purple, red, other
colors in between flowers and,quite frankly, they're gorgeous.
They're beautiful flowers,really wonderful.
However, they're so aggressive.
So they partner a couple ofthings together.
One, they pollinate andfertilize readily.
(04:13):
The bright colors, the highnectar volume that they produce,
the big pollen load actually issuper attractive to a lot of
pollinators.
So they get pollinated heavily,they fertilize readily and
their seeds actually have asurprisingly high germination
rate.
A lot of times when we findplants that put out these big
seed loads it's because maybethe germination rate's low,
(04:35):
maybe they need very specificconditions to grow, and so you
get high seed volume but notnecessarily a high germination
rate.
It's an adaptation,evolutionary.
They are hedging their betsagainst the environment.
They want to make sure thatthey're going to grow and
survive and make more morningglories right.
So you put out big seed volumesand sometimes that's because
(04:57):
not all of them are going togrow.
But with morning glories theyactually have a fairly high
germination rate.
So what we see is if you have amorning glory growing out of
fence, on whatever, they droptons of seeds and you're going
to get tons of little seedlingspopping up.
The cotyledons as they come upon.
A lot of these species actuallylook like plants, with I don't
(05:19):
know how to describe it exactlywithout showing you a picture,
which is hard to do on a podcastbut they almost look like an
animal, like a two-toed animalwith a cloven hoof, and they
have parts that come out inthese pronged sort of growth,
and so you get tons of them thatcome up, and even if most of
those don't survive, theseplants can grow so quickly.
They grow up things.
They're really good at climbingand twining.
(05:40):
So fence lines, trees, tallerplants, your, your dog if it's
real slow will readily serve asa trellis or a support structure
for these morning glories.
They get up in the sun, growquickly, produce a whole bunch
of seeds and continue on.
So there's some things we cando to control annual morning
glory, pre-emergence herbicides,just removing them as we see
(06:02):
them, and even though the seedscan be viable for a while, they
germinate readily.
You can, over time, over a fewseasons, get them under control.
Now they can be spread by birdsand different things, so that
is another challenge here.
Okay, so enter field bindweed,convolvulus arvensis.
So this is a very perniciousweed in North America.
(06:24):
It was actually in, I believe,the 20s or 30s, and I could be
wrong about these dates.
I think called one of the worstnoxious weeds in the American
West or in the United States.
This is, like I mentioned, aperennial morning glory and if
you've been driving on a collegecampus or anywhere and there's
(06:44):
a bunch of shrubs that don'tflower normally and you look up
and you say I didn't realize,this shrub had tiny little
delicate white, pink flowers onit.
That's pretty, it is, but it'salso probably field bindweed.
This is also a plant that growsvery quickly, very readily,
climbs up things.
(07:04):
So from an agriculturalperspective it's going to grow
up your crops, whether you'regrowing cotton or corn or
soybeans or whatever tomatoes.
If there's field bindweedavailable, it's going to climb
those plants, it will shade themout.
It can cause a lot of otherproblems, including just
muddying the crop.
Right.
If you're getting leaves andstems and flowers and seeds from
(07:27):
field bindweed that gets mixedin with your crop at harvest one
, it can make it less saleablebecause you've got other trash
materials growing in there.
But also from a cleaning andmanagement standpoint it can be
a lot more challenging becauseyou have to have a clean crop to
go out.
So it costs you time, costs youmoney, not great.
The problem we run into here isthat this is a perennial plant
(07:50):
that grows aggressively and hasa big, deep taproot.
Taproot is an underground root,typically goes straight down,
and it's there for carbohydratestorage, resource storage,
nutrient storage for the plant,but also to help it find water.
This grows in a lot of reallydry climates very well, and so
it's looking for water deeperunderground.
One of the issues we run intohere is that this taproot has a
(08:14):
large number of nodes or growingpoints along the taproot and if
you leave those nodes intact,even if you remove the
above-ground portions of theplant, it comes back from the
taproot and over and over tillyou give up and move somewhere
else.
Right, it's a challenge.
Again.
There's a reason it's calledone of the worst noxious weeds
in the us.
It is that it's aggressive,grows fast.
(08:38):
It's hard to control.
Some things you can do to getrid of field bindweed,
practically speaking, is likeany other perennial plant that
goes dormant in the winter whenwe get into late summer, early
fall.
That plant is going to workreally hard to store resources
in that taproot so that it cancome back the next year.
So it has the energy it needsto start putting leaves up all
(09:00):
of that.
So if you're one that usessystemic herbicides whatever
kind of herbicide that is timingis super important.
I think where we go wrong islike we see the plant.
It's like I'm going to spray it, we spray it and then it comes
back.
I'm going to spray it again andover and over, and then over
time we can develop resistance.
We can develop a lot of issues,but if we time our applications
(09:24):
thoughtfully, we use way lesschemical and we'd be way more
effective.
So around here where I live inthe northern part of Texas,
around I don't know Labor Day alittle bit, after so late
September into early October, asthe temperatures are starting
to cool down, as the nights arecooling off, that's really the
right time to treat ourperennial plants if we're trying
(09:46):
to get rid of them.
So if we're going to use aherbicide, spray it with our
herbicide then Because whathappens is it gets absorbed into
the leaf and instead of allthat growth coming upwards,
where the chemical gets moved upinto the above ground portions
of the plant, it gets stored inthe taproot and when that
happens we can actually getreally good and really effective
root kill and so you may notget all of it year one, but over
(10:10):
time you can really depletethat prevalence of that plant.
You can deplete how many arethere, and so that's an
effective.
I don't know that's aneffective strategy you can use
just in general.
But a lot of people don't likeusing herbicides and I can
sympathize with that If that'sthe case.
There are some biocontrolmethods.
(10:32):
There are bindweed weevils thatwill burrow into the stem and
chew it up, but they're hard toget.
They're expensive.
If you don't have enoughavailable, the weevils will die
out before your bindweed andthen you know you're back at
square one.
You spend a bunch of money forit.
Really, what you're doing isgoing through this battle of
attrition with field bindweed.
(10:52):
You want to deplete the taproot.
Every time you see a littlebaby plant come up, you get rid
of it.
Every time it comes up, startsphotosynthesizing, starts trying
to store resources down in theroot, you get rid of it over and
over again and over time youcan deplete that taproot and you
can kill the plant.
It's a lot more time consuming,a lot more labor intensive.
(11:13):
It's a lot more work, but ifyou don't want to use herbicides
, that's really your best bet isjust mechanical removal as
often as you see the plant,because what you're trying to do
is not let it storecarbohydrates in the root.
If you can do this, in the fallit's even more effective, right
?
Because that's this criticalgrowth period where it's gonna
store all of its resources andif you can deplete that, then in
(11:33):
the spring it's harder for itto come back up, more
susceptible to climate and a lotof other things.
But yes, they're diabolical.
They're so hard to deal with.
Morning glory and bindweed arereally tough weeds to deal with.
So Rui hit me with fivequestions and I appreciate that
because I need content.
But I think I'm going to save acouple of these, or one of
(11:54):
these for sure, and answer it ina video here in the next couple
of weeks, just for the sake oftime.
But there is a question that Iwanted to answer on the podcast.
It's really very interesting.
So he says is it true thatrelative humidity being in the
right range allows plants togrow better and makes them more
resilient to pests and diseases?
Is it like balancing theinternal hydrological pressure
(12:16):
with the outside atmosphere?
I don't know.
I just saw some things in thegreenhouse and it's got me
thinking that this is such aninteresting question Because in
some ways it's maybecounterintuitive.
In some ways, I think he'sprobably right on here.
Now, as temperature and relativehumidity increase, plants
(12:36):
actually oftentimes become moresusceptible to insects and
diseases.
It tends to be a more favorableenvironment for these things to
grow and develop.
Think of a tropical region.
Right, I'm out here in WestTexas.
It's hot and dry, we seeinsects, we see plant diseases,
but it's fairly minimal.
The climate as it is being dry,being hot, being windy
(12:58):
suppresses some of thosepopulations, more on the disease
side, particularly with fungusand bacteria, than on the insect
side.
But it is is.
You do see suppression in hot,dry climates, especially with
very cold winters like we have,as relative humidity increases
and you get more tropical.
This is a more temperateenvironment for not just our
(13:19):
plants but for our insects, forour pathogens, for the bacteria
and fungi that infect our plants.
So a lot of times we actuallysee an increase in disease
prevalence.
Wet environments are conduciveto bacterial growth, fungal
growth, and a lot of times thesepathogens are getting into the
leaf through a wet leaf surface.
(13:40):
So if it's real humid, it rains, that water sticks on the leaf.
A lot of times it's really easyfor that fungus to get inside
or that bacteria to get inside.
However, I was reading aboutthis and there's some really
interesting studies that sort ofthrow some wrenches in this
general convention.
Now I'm going to say up frontthat the short answer for almost
(14:01):
any biological, botanical,zoological, whatever it is it
depends.
There are so many caveats in somuch gray area.
There is a wide spectrum inbiology for almost anything that
we're talking about, so it'shard to say definitively that
yes or no, this is or isn't Okay.
So the best we can do is teachthrough example.
So it's going to vary.
It's complicated, but one studyI read it was in tomatoes and a
(14:26):
fungus called Botrytis cinerea.
Okay, this is a gray mold.
So you'll see this a lot onyour tomato leaves and it looks
like just a gray mold.
You also see Botrytis reallycommonly.
If you leave a strawberry inthe fridge too long, botrytis
starts to grow and you get thatmoldy stuff on your strawberries
.
Botrytis is ubiquitous.
It's everywhere in theenvironment.
(14:46):
As you and I sit here, wheneveryou're listening to this,
there's Botrytis all around you.
It's not going to hurt you, butit's there, right.
But it can ruin plants.
It can cause photosyntheticcapacity loss.
It can ruin our fruits and ourveggies and so it is problematic
.
So the study looked at tomatoesand the presence of botrytis in
(15:10):
tomato plants at differenttemperatures and relative
humidities, and what they foundis that at low temperatures the
conditions weren't right ingeneral for Botrytis, which is a
fungus, to grow good myceliumand all of that and infect the
plant.
So at low temperature it's nottoo bad.
But as you increase humidity,even in low temperatures, the
prevalence of this fungus doesgo up.
(15:32):
So when we see highertemperatures at relatively low
relative humidities, we seemoderate response and so we
would think as relative humidityand temperature increase, we
should see an increase in theprevalence of this bacteria or
this fungus, this disease, andwe do.
But we also see reducedinfection in the plant.
(15:52):
So while the fungus can growmore effectively in warmer, more
humid environments I'm talkingrelative humidity of 80% and up
it doesn't affect the plant asreadily.
And some of the speculation inthe articles that I read which,
by the way, I'm going to belinking these articles and
giving you the references thatI've used in the show notes in
(16:14):
case you'd like to look some ofthese studies up.
Really interesting stuff.
They postulate that astemperature and relative
humidity increase think theenvironment in a greenhouse the
plant fitness overall increasesas well.
So what that means is, eventhough there's more of the
pathogen present, the plant'shealthier and those plant
defense compounds can actuallydo a much better job of fighting
(16:37):
off infection from ourdifferent things Maybe not
insects as much, but definitelyfungal pathogens, and there's a
lot to this.
Right.
As a plant gets healthier, getsmore fit, it can carry out its
biological functions better.
It can produce these toxinsthat help produce it from
diseases.
It can increase volatileorganic compounds.
It can do a lot of things tohelp make it healthier.
Diseases it can increasevolatile organic compounds.
(16:58):
You can do a lot of things tohelp make it healthier.
What we're really trying to doand one of the big, I think,
high-level ideas behindintegrated pest management is
make your plant as healthy aspossible.
Give your plant the bestenvironment that favors its
growth in its own defense andmaybe disincentivizes the
(17:18):
infection of a pathogen, even ifit's present.
So the answer is yeah, maybe,as relative humidity goes up,
even though a lot of ourdiseases, a lot of our insects,
are happier at that level too,some of our plants may be
happier as well.
Now, this is not necessarilygoing to relate to houseplants.
(17:39):
I think there's again a bigspectrum here, but there are
some interesting results thatcame with it.
I would say in a greenhouseenvironment, yes, you'll get
increased pathogen.
I don't know availability,ubiquity, whatever, but as long
as we're keeping our plantshealthy, they are more able to
tolerate some of these things inthe environment.
(18:01):
Essentially, we're justbuilding up their defenses.
They don't have an immunesystem exactly like you and I do
, but it's not a bad analog.
It's not a bad way to think it.
The healthier we are as a wholesystem, we are, to some extent,
more able to fight off diseaseand have better health overall.
(18:22):
Now, that being said, even avery quote unquote healthy
person can get sick, right?
There are pathogens that willeasily overcome our best
defenses, which is why we havedoctors and medicine and all of
these things, and so the same istrue for your plants.
You have the best darnhealthiest tomato plant in the
world, but when the tomatohornworms show up, they're going
(18:43):
to eat it anyway, which is whythe plant has different
strategies, like releasingvolatile organic compounds to
cull everything from wasps tobirds to come eat the
caterpillars.
There's all kinds of defenses.
So the short answer here ismaybe it's better at high
relative humidity, but itdepends.
And the long answer is thatthis is a complex series of
(19:04):
interactions between a plant andits environment, whether that
is antagonists in theenvironment, insects or harmful
insects quote unquote harmfulinsects and diseases and things
like that or just with theenvironment in general.
So that's a good question andthere's a lot of research on
this.
So I would encourage you, ifthat's something you're
interested in, to check out thelinked articles here.
(19:25):
They're pretty fascinating andjust look into it a little bit
more because it is very cool.
The next question that comes upis from tcarpenter605, also on
threads.
These are all going to comefrom threads today.
Actually, the question is whyisn't rooftop commercial
gardening more popular?
I think that's a great questionand there's a lot to this.
(19:46):
We don't probably have time toget into all the nuance here,
but one of the short answers towhy aren't we rooftop gardening
more because I actually get toask this question a lot,
especially in big cities why arewe not taking all of this roof
space and putting gardens on it?
Okay, there are a couple ofreasons.
One I think rooftop gardens area great idea.
Personally, I think anything wecan do to break up urban heat
(20:10):
islands.
I think that any ways that wecan make our urban real estate
more green, whether that's atthe ground level or up on top of
a building, we should do that.
Okay.
Problems arise with the factthat a lot of buildings are not
built from an infrastructurestandpoint, a structural
standpoint, to support a rooftopgarden, because you know what
(20:31):
Plants are heavy and soil isheavy and what's really heavy is
wet soil.
So you take your building andyou're like you know what this
building has 10,000 square footof roof space.
We're going to put a bigrooftop garden here, cool.
The structural loads of thatbuilding are intended to hold up
natural, normal sort of thingsthat it interacts with Animals,
(20:53):
big rainstorms, snow, whateverto a certain tolerance and a
certain certain capacity.
But then you take a whole bunchof wood and you build raised
beds.
You fill those raised beds withsoil or potting media, you put
plants in there and you growplants and those plants do the
photosynthesis thing and turnall this carbon dioxide in the
air into more plant.
(21:13):
And so you're constantlyincreasing your weight load on
the roofs of these buildingsthat are not designed for it
right.
And then it rains.
Oh my goodness, it rains.
We have a big rainstorm andsoil, if you didn't know, is
really good at holding on towater.
It can absorb many times itsweight in water.
So you get these beds that arealready heavy, full of heavy
(21:34):
plants, full of heavy things,and then you put gallons and
gallons of water on top of it.
By the way, a gallon of waterweighs about eight pounds, just
as a metric to hang on to.
So, one, your roof has to beable to hold this up and, two,
that water has to go somewhere.
(21:56):
Our buildings are a lot of timesdesigned to shed water quickly.
They don't want it necessarilystanding on the roofs, they want
it moving and going awayquickly to shed over the sides
of the building, down drain,whatever, however it is.
But then we build all thesestructures that hold water in
place and water is going to findpath of least resistance to the
(22:18):
ground.
And when there's no resistanceand it can just easily move
across a roof surface and overthe side, okay, cool, when you
hold it in place, maybe the pathof least resistance is through
your office it can weaken thestructure of a roof, which is,
by the way, not great if youwork in that building.
So I believe that we very wellcould replace a lot of our roof
(22:43):
line, a lot of our urban roofspace, with gardens, and I
actually think we should bothcommercially, socially.
It's a great place to eat lunch, it's a great place to do a lot
of things, but we need to bedesigning our buildings with
green infrastructure and we needto be designing our buildings
as we build new ones to supportthe weight, to support all of
the different sort of flow ratesand things that go with plants
(23:07):
growing up there.
So is it a good idea?
Yes, absolutely.
I think so.
I think it requires a lot moreeffort to retrofit an existing
structure to support that Notthat it's impossible, it's done
fairly regularly.
Then it probably is to build anew building already with it set
up that way.
It's a good question.
(23:28):
I'm actually a big component ofrooftop gardening and urban
green space, so I think that issomething that, moving into the
future, we should think moreabout.
But I'm going to take a quickbreak, run some mid-roll stuff
at you and then my lastquestions for today are all
about houseplants.
So we'll tackle those together.
So stick around and we'll beright back.
Hey there, welcome to themid-roll Fancy.
(23:52):
Seeing you here.
How's your mom?
How are your kids?
How's the dog?
Tell your dog I said hi, andalso give your house plants a
nice pat on the head for me.
So first off, I want to thankyou for listening and for being
a part of Plantthropology.
Thanks for all the kind wordsand comments, and just listening
to it and being a part of it,it really means the world to me.
Thanks so much to the TexasTech Department of Plant and
Soil Science.
The really means the world tome.
(24:12):
Thanks so much to the TexasTech Department of Plant and
Soil Science and the DavisCollege of Agricultural Science
and Natural Resources forletting me do the show and
supporting me through it all ofthese years.
Thanks to all the guests thathave actually already agreed to
be on this season.
I've got some great interviewslined up and I cannot wait for
you to hear them.
But again, most of all, thankyou so much.
(24:34):
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(24:56):
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(25:17):
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(25:39):
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(25:59):
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(26:20):
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planthropology and for the priceof a coffee you can help
support the show and mostly buyme coffee.
Yes, pay for hosting fees andblah, blah, blah, but it's
mostly the coffee.
Anyway, we've got a greatseason of Planthropology coming
up.
Like I mentioned, some reallygood interviews, but if there's
something specific you wouldlike to hear, please let me know
(26:43):
.
And that's all I've got for you.
So let's get into the secondhalf of the episode and do some
more questions.
All right, we are back.
I hope.
I think I pushed the rightbutton, we'll find out.
So some other questions, andthese are all houseplant related
.
So the first one is from myfriend, ben Randall, who goes by
(27:06):
Chef Ben Randall.
He has a great podcast, by theway as well, which I'll link in
the show notes.
But Ben says okay, I've heardvarying reports about whether
indoor plants actually improveair quality.
If they can do, which ones doyou recommend for optimal air
deliciousness in the home?
Air delicious I actually likethat quite a bit.
(27:26):
Make your air more delicious.
Okay, so some things about this.
A lot of the conversation aroundthis goes back to an old study
by NASA, I think, like in the80s, surrounding which kinds of
plants will clean the air.
They're looking atbioremediation for space travel,
other ways that they can useplants as air filtration, things
(27:48):
like that.
Because if we're going tocoexist on another planet
certain people say that we arewe're going to have to have
plants and we got to figure outhow those plants grow in space
and how they're going tomaintain a healthy ecosystem
like they do here on Earth,because they're from Earth and
the things that they do arebased on evolution and
development here on Earth, noton Mars or in a spaceship.
(28:10):
So NASA has been working inastrobiology and astrobotany for
a long time trying to figureout how this works and how to
get its work, and it goes backand forth.
Okay, so there are a bunch ofplants out there that do
potentially make air quality alittle bit better.
So this measurement is calledindoor air quality IAQ and it's
(28:31):
become a bigger concern in ourhomes as we've gotten better at
building homes and that soundsweird, but you've probably heard
of like sick building syndrome.
So in the past buildingsweren't really airtight, right.
They leaked pretty readily.
There was air exchange withinside and outside.
So when you've got molddevelopment, when you got
different things, you would havesome air turnover and the
(28:54):
airflow in and out of the homeWindows were open more.
But in more recent history, iffor energy efficiency, for
making sure that we can heat andcool effectively, we've really
sealed up our houses, and if youclose all the doors and windows
and button everything up,you're just recycling air inside
the home.
Button everything up, you'rejust recycling air inside the
(29:16):
home and it's only when we opena window or open a door that we
get any kind of air exchange,but it's not nearly as much as
we've seen in the past.
So we've seen things like moldincreasing Again.
They call it sick buildingsyndrome.
There's a lot of stuff thatgoes along with it Old buildings
that have been sealed up for along time.
The air quality is really verypoor.
So the thought is, if I putplants in, will it fix it?
So there's a few points here.
Now again, there are a hundreddifferent things we can study
(29:40):
and talk about in terms of howdo plants improve air quality?
If they do, maybe they don't.
One as maybe a high-leveltalking point.
From a human health standpoint,being around plants is good.
From a human health standpoint,being around plants is good.
There are a lot of data outthere looking from everything
from plants in the hospital,plants in your home.
(30:01):
Looking at physical well-being,mental well-being, a lot of
other things, emotionalwell-being.
Being around plants hasphysiological benefits for you,
and this is like long studiedempirical data for things that
we know.
If we are not feeling good,sometimes going outside and
getting some fresh air andwalking around in the park helps
.
There's data to back that up.
(30:21):
Right?
This is real science.
So having plants around goodthing, do it?
Put plants in your house, getsome house plants, put flowers
in there.
Whatever you want to do, it isa net benefit for your health,
whether or not it affects indoorair quality.
But reading some differentstudies and I read two or three
different papers on this acouple of them were review
papers looking at a wide sort ofswath of data, there are some
(30:43):
benefits and there are somethings that probably don't work
as well as we think.
So one of the things that peopletalk about quite a bit is that
having plants in the house willreduce carbon dioxide in the
home, just as a crash course inphotosynthesis.
Plants harvest energy from thesun as photons and then they
pull carbon dioxide out of theair and they go through this
(31:07):
complex cascade of processes toessentially turn radiative
energy, solar heat energy intostored chemical energy in the
form of glucose and othercarbohydrates.
That is photosynthesis.
We're taking carbon out of theair, using energy from the sun,
converting that energy by way ofcarbon dioxide make sugars and
different things.
We're essentially taking heat,radiation energy, and turning it
(31:30):
into chemical potential energy.
Okay, that's the nutshell ofphotosynthesis.
Unfortunately for my students,in about a week after as I
record this, they're going tohave to learn about
photosynthesis in much less of anutshell.
So if you're one of my studentslistening to this, buckle up,
it'll be fine.
The other side of that is, asthey are going through this
process of photosynthesis,they're releasing oxygen into
(31:53):
the atmosphere.
Now, on a global sort ofbalance, it does lead to a net
sort of increase in oxygen, butgenerally it stays pretty
standard.
Right?
The amount of carbon dioxide inthe air, if we are not pumping
(32:13):
additional carbon dioxide intothe air, would stay pretty
stable because all the plants onthe planet, from a molar gas
exchange standpoint, do it at arate that's pretty standard and
pretty normal.
Then we take fossil fuels andwe burn them and we add extra
carbon dioxide and the plantscan't keep up.
So they're producing oxygen,they're sequestering carbon
dioxide, but we're still gettinga net increase in the
(32:35):
atmosphere.
If you're inside your house andyou're breathing, you're taking
in oxygen and other things andusing the oxygen and breathing
out carbon dioxide.
That is respiration, which isthe biological inverse of
photosynthesis.
In a lot of ways, plants arealso respiring.
Every plant cell in generalrespires too.
(32:57):
So they are also consumingoxygen and releasing carbon
dioxide.
It's just that photosynthesis,in the right conditions, in high
light amounts, happens at ahigher rate than respiration.
So a plant, as it's activelyphotosynthesizing, outstrips the
respiration rate right.
So it's producing more oxygenthan it is carbon dioxide, even
(33:19):
though it's always producingboth.
Then we take that plant, we putit in our house in very low
light levels and ourphotosynthesis rate drops.
Okay, so we're stillphotosynthesizing, we're still
respiring, but they're probablydoing at more of an even rate.
Generally speaking, if we want agrowth and development way to
look at this, if your plantisn't growing much, your
(33:42):
photosynthesis and respirationare fairly equal because the
resources that it's pulling inthrough photosynthesis are being
burned at the same rate byrespiration and the plant
doesn't grow.
If your plant starts to grow,then your photosynthetic rate is
usually higher than respiration.
This is an oversimplification,but it's not a bad way to look
(34:03):
at it.
So if you have houseplants thataren't doing much, it's
probably zeroing out.
If you have houseplants thatare actively growing, you may be
getting a little more oxygenthan carbon dioxide produced.
But generally speaking, in lowlight environments this is going
to be fairly close for a lot ofplants, even our tropical and
low light plants.
(34:23):
So from a CO2 standpointprobably doesn't affect the CO2
very much, what I think a lot ofpeople think about is
pollutants.
So, whether these are microbialor particulates like dust and
things like that, or organiccompounds, gases, volatile
organic compounds, things likeformaldehyde and benzenes and
(34:46):
different things like that,could the plant scrub those out?
And the answer is yeah, to acertain extent.
Yeah, one of these studies.
I'm just going to read you aquote out of the study.
The primary effects of thepotential indoor plants on air
quality were reduced pollutantlevels, particularly
formaldehyde, benzene, tolueneremoval, followed by increase in
(35:09):
humidity and decrease intemperature.
In addition, including variousplant species could improve the
effects of indoor vegetation onemulating air quality and
microclimate conditions.
So a couple of things arehappening here.
As the plants grow, yeah, we dosee a potential reduction in
some of these volatile organiccompounds in the air.
The mechanisms for how thishappens are complicated and
(35:32):
maybe not very well understood.
The same is true for dust andother particulates.
But it's true that the plantsare diffusing some of these
compounds into themselvesthrough the stomata.
They're pulling it in as theypull in CO2 and other air, and
it gets metabolized a lot oftimes and stored in the plant as
different things.
That's a good thing.
What we think may be happeningtoo, and at a higher rate, is
(35:55):
actually in the soil that theplant is potted in, because it
turns out that fungi what wecall, which means root fungus or
soil area fungus is really gooda lot of times at pulling some
of these particulates out of theair so it could be diffusion
through the soil and captured bymicro.
It could be captured by theleaves.
(36:17):
They found that one plant maynot be better than another, but
differences in density on thebottom of the leaves, leaf size,
leaf shape, different things.
If you have a whole bunch ofthem and different kinds, it's
probably better than just having, like, just a fiddle leaf, fig
or whatever house.
So we see some difference insome of these things and
actually some improvements inindoor air quality.
(36:38):
One study I looked at which wasreally interesting was looking
at what if we took an activerole in this and instead of just
saying these plants are goingto passively filter the air,
what if we let them activelyfilter the air?
And they looked at taking fansor different types of air
movement devices and actuallyforcing air through the soil,
(36:59):
through the plant canopy,through different things, and
this probably showed some of thebigger reductions in volatile
organic compounds and differentthings in the air.
So maybe we just buildbiofilters in our house, I don't
know.
Can plants improve indoor airquality?
Yes, but it's complicated andit doesn't do everything.
Should you still have plants inyour house?
(37:20):
I vote absolutely yes.
I vote yes.
They are good for you.
Whether they pull formaldehydeout of the air, they're a good
thing, okay, sort of taggingonto that, my friend Farm
Traveler, who has a greatpodcast and YouTube series as
well, said what are the bestindoor plants for low light
conditions?
There's a bunch of them, butI'm going to say my probably top
(37:43):
three are pothos, snake plantand zizi plant.
These are plants.
Prayer plant is up there.
Sometimes a fitonia or nerveplant can do pretty well, but
you want things that are goingto generally have a dark green
color, a waxy cuticle, that aregoing to take low light
conditions.
Now I will say every plant, anyplant, any house plant wants
(38:04):
light, whether that's indirectlight from a window or whatever.
Bright indirect light is goingto be great for your house
plants.
You can use grow lights.
You can use different things.
They.
Indirect light is going to begreat for your houseplants.
You can use grow lights.
You can use different things.
They need light.
It's just that some of theseare a little bit better suited
to growing in somewhat lowerlight conditions.
So what I would say is go, lookin the shade area of your
(38:25):
garden center, look inside theconservatory parts and try some
different ones.
But for my money it's hard tobeat a snake plant, it's hard to
beat pothos in low lightconditions, and ZZ plant,
prairie plant and nerve plant dopretty well as well.
Tagging onto that, just JessVice asks why are fiddle leaf
figs so fickle?
(38:46):
Yeah, yeah, they are, they are.
Fiddle leaf figs are probablylike the most dramatic
houseplant you could have.
You look at them wrong and theydrop half their leaves.
You move them and goodness,they'll complain a lot and drop
all of their leaves.
They like being in one place,which makes some sense, right?
Plants don't move really.
(39:09):
And if you think of anunderstory plant that's growing
under other things in a tropicalenvironment, the environment
doesn't change much.
It's the light conditions arestable, the air conditions and
temperature and rainfall andeverything else.
It's fairly stable.
It really doesn't change muchover time.
And in a natural setting ifthere is this big change in
(39:30):
light, in water, in temperature,there's probably a large
disturbance.
That's trees falling down,that's canopy changes, they're
going to let more light in ormore wind through or whatever.
A protective response of a lotof plants is when there is a lot
of stress, when the environmentchanges, they drop their leaves
to reduce the amount of waterthat they have to move through
(39:50):
the system, because the water isreleased to the environment
through the leaves.
Leaves can be expensive for theplant to maintain from a
resource standpoint.
While, yes, that's how they gettheir carbohydrates through
photosynthesis, they can usuallygo a little while on stored
reserves until maybe disruptionsin the environment stop right.
They get better.
(40:11):
So you take your house, plantyour fiddle leaf fig that's
happy in a certain corner andyou're like you know what.
It looks goofy in this corner,it should be in that corner and
you move it to that corner.
The plant immediately goes, ah,danger and it thinks like a
tree has fallen.
They don't think things, butlike it's a disruption in its
environment.
So you just have to give ittime.
(40:32):
Usually, most fiddle leaf figs,if you move them from one light
environment to another, onetemperature environment to
another where they can't see theTV, I don't know they tend to
drop a bunch of leaves.
Generally those leaves comeback.
If that's the case, just keepthem well watered.
Try not to disturb the root,the area of the root zone, as
much as possible.
Keep them well watered.
(40:53):
Keep them at a temperature thatis consistent.
Don't put them by a super coldwindow where they're going to
get big blasts of differenttemperature air Probably.
Don't put them by a door,necessarily.
Put them somewhere where it'sgoing to be very consistent and
over time they will leaf backout.
Usually it doesn't even takethat long and they'll keep
growing.
But yes, fiddle leaf figs superdramatic.
(41:14):
They're gonna make a messanytime.
The last question I want toanswer and I don't have a good
answer for it and I'm not evensure this is what she was asking
, but I'm gonna answer thequestion I think she was asking.
It's from Bonnie Brantley ofthe Oz9 podcast.
Bonnie asks where do we go?
(41:35):
What do we do?
Y'all?
I don't know.
Things are weird right now froman environmental standpoint,
from an academic standpoint, fora lot of things, and I think
the question of what do we donow is probably on a lot of
people's hearts and minds.
It's on mine for sure.
My wife and I have had a lot ofconversations about this.
The one thing I know we don'tdo is quit, and what I mean is
(41:56):
quit our jobs, sure, but alsoquit building community, quit
being good to each other, quittaking care of our planet in the
ways that we can through thepower that we have, quit asking
for better from the peopleleading us right.
I don't think we quit.
I don't think we ever do,because it turns out that hope
is powerful and that just movingforward is powerful.
(42:17):
Bonnie, I don't know what we do,I don't know where we go, but
forward, but on.
And that's about the best I got.
And if you're asking acompletely different question,
let me know and I'll try toanswer that one.
But that's how that read to meand that is actually what's been
on my mind a lot recently.
So where do we go?
What do we do?
I don't know what the next stepis, but I know that we have to
(42:39):
take it Right.
We have to keep moving, andthat's what I'm going to try to
do, and I hope that's whatyou're trying to do, and I'm
going to keep answeringquestions and talking to cool
plant people and talking abouthow cool nature is in our
environment is and how preciousit is and how much we have to
protect it.
That's my job and I think,whatever you feel like your job
(43:01):
is in this world and I don'tjust mean the thing that gives
you a paycheck, but like yourfunction, your purpose hold on
tight to that.
Do that.
Okay, that's all I got.
Thanks for listening, thanks forbeing part of Planthropology.
Again, thanks to you, thelistener most.
First and foremost, thank youfor believing in the show and
believing what we do.
Thanks for your comments andjust for being cool, okay.
(43:24):
Thanks to the Texas TechDepartment of Plant and Soil
Science for all the support.
Thanks to the award-winningcomposer, nicholas Scout, for
the theme music for the show.
Planthropology is written,hosted, produced whatever else
it is that people do forpodcasts by me and it's
supported by you.
And just your time and yourattention.
(43:45):
I love you.
I think you are the best.
Keep being kind to one another,especially now.
If you have not, to this time,been kind to the people around
you, maybe give that a try.
It's pretty cool.
Be good, be safe and keep beingreally cool.
Plant people and we'll talk ina couple of weeks.
Thank you.
What is up?
Plant people it's time oncemore for the Plantthropology
podcast, the show where we diveinto the lives and careers of
some very cool plant people tofigure out why they do what they
do and what keeps them comingback for more.
I'm Vikram Blakey, your hostand your humble guide in this
journey through the sciences and, as always, my dearest friends.
I am so excited to be with youtoday.
It is winter Q&A time.
(00:21):
You'll know that every now andthen, whether it's once a month
or once a quarter and it's goingto be once a quarter, I'm going
to tell you seasonally, we'regoing to do Q&A episodes and I
solicit questions from socialmedia.
I get people to ask me theirburning plant or education or
whatever questions, and then Itry my best to answer them.
So we've got a good set fortoday and everything from
(00:46):
actually a lot about houseplants, lots of questions about
houseplants today, which is cool.
So we'll talk about that.
We'll talk about humidity,we'll talk about rooftop
gardening and even just what dowe do?
What do we do?
How do we do the thing as we go?
What do we do?
We'll talk about that too.
So buckle up, grab yourfavorite house plant and give it
a nice little pat on the headand get ready for episode 113 of
(01:10):
the Plantthropology podcast,winter 2025 Q&A.
Okay so, first off, as I wentback and listened to that intro
(01:43):
section, I said my name so weirdI don't know how to feel about
that my name I say it a lot.
My name is Vikram Baliga, notwhatever.
I said through a mouthful ofoatmeal or whatever.
I don't know what happened.
It was weird, it's okay, we'regoing to get through it.
Okay, lots of questions todayand I want to just jump into
(02:05):
them, so I've got time to do allof them as we get to this
episode.
It's maybe a long one anyway,maybe short and we're gonna find
out.
Okay.
So the first one is from myfriend, rui, and if you have a
chance to look him up, he makessome sick lo-fi dad beats and
the work he does goes to promotewildflower conservation and
natural conservation.
He buys wildflower seeds anddoes a lot of great work.
(02:28):
You may be hearing from him inthe not too distant future.
So Rui, on Threads, asked whyis Morning Glory and Bindweed
such a diabolical I'm editing alittle bit here plant, a
diabolical plant.
I can't use some of the otherwords he asked.
That's okay.
It's a family-friendly show,rui.
(02:48):
Anyway, why are bindweed andmorning glory so diabolical?
And that is such a goodquestion?
And it's actually for a coupleof different reasons.
Now, if you don't know whatthese are, I'm going to give you
a second to pull out your phonemachine and Google morning
glory, okay.
So now that you've done thatand you've got a good look at
how honestly very pretty morningglories are, let's talk about
(03:10):
why they are so difficult tocontrol.
Now, both of these morningglory and bindweed which, by the
way, bindweed is perennialmorning glory Most morning
glories in our part of NorthAmerica or throughout North
America, tends to be an annual.
It's not very cold, hardy, itgoes dormant, it dies back to
(03:30):
the ground or it just dies outcompletely in the winter.
So for most of the UnitedStates and most places north of
the tropical regions of theworld, it's going to be an
annual plant world.
It's going to be an annualplant.
It completes life cycle veryquickly and because of that it
does a few things that give itreally great survival mechanisms
.
Right, it's got some greatstrategies for survival and
(03:52):
growing.
For one, it produces seedsprolifically.
Now you've probably seen there'sthese bright purple, red, other
colors in between flowers and,quite frankly, they're gorgeous.
They're beautiful flowers,really wonderful.
However, they're so aggressive.
So they partner a couple ofthings together.
One, they pollinate andfertilize readily.
(04:13):
The bright colors, the highnectar volume that they produce,
the big pollen load actually issuper attractive to a lot of
pollinators.
So they get pollinated heavily,they fertilize readily and
their seeds actually have asurprisingly high germination
rate.
A lot of times when we findplants that put out these big
seed loads it's because maybethe germination rate's low,
(04:35):
maybe they need very specificconditions to grow, and so you
get high seed volume but notnecessarily a high germination
rate.
It's an adaptation,evolutionary.
They are hedging their betsagainst the environment.
They want to make sure thatthey're going to grow and
survive and make more morningglories right.
So you put out big seed volumesand sometimes that's because
(04:57):
not all of them are going togrow.
But with morning glories theyactually have a fairly high
germination rate.
So what we see is if you have amorning glory growing out of
fence, on whatever, they droptons of seeds and you're going
to get tons of little seedlingspopping up.
The cotyledons as they come upon.
A lot of these species actuallylook like plants, with I don't
(05:19):
know how to describe it exactlywithout showing you a picture,
which is hard to do on a podcastbut they almost look like an
animal, like a two-toed animalwith a cloven hoof, and they
have parts that come out inthese pronged sort of growth,
and so you get tons of them thatcome up, and even if most of
those don't survive, theseplants can grow so quickly.
They grow up things.
They're really good at climbingand twining.
(05:40):
So fence lines, trees, tallerplants, your, your dog if it's
real slow will readily serve asa trellis or a support structure
for these morning glories.
They get up in the sun, growquickly, produce a whole bunch
of seeds and continue on.
So there's some things we cando to control annual morning
glory, pre-emergence herbicides,just removing them as we see
(06:02):
them, and even though the seedscan be viable for a while, they
germinate readily.
You can, over time, over a fewseasons, get them under control.
Now they can be spread by birdsand different things, so that
is another challenge here.
Okay, so enter field bindweed,convolvulus arvensis.
So this is a very perniciousweed in North America.
(06:24):
It was actually in, I believe,the 20s or 30s, and I could be
wrong about these dates.
I think called one of the worstnoxious weeds in the American
West or in the United States.
This is, like I mentioned, aperennial morning glory and if
you've been driving on a collegecampus or anywhere and there's
(06:44):
a bunch of shrubs that don'tflower normally and you look up
and you say I didn't realize,this shrub had tiny little
delicate white, pink flowers onit.
That's pretty, it is, but it'salso probably field bindweed.
This is also a plant that growsvery quickly, very readily,
climbs up things.
(07:04):
So from an agriculturalperspective it's going to grow
up your crops, whether you'regrowing cotton or corn or
soybeans or whatever tomatoes.
If there's field bindweedavailable, it's going to climb
those plants, it will shade themout.
It can cause a lot of otherproblems, including just
muddying the crop.
Right.
If you're getting leaves andstems and flowers and seeds from
(07:27):
field bindweed that gets mixedin with your crop at harvest one
, it can make it less saleablebecause you've got other trash
materials growing in there.
But also from a cleaning andmanagement standpoint it can be
a lot more challenging becauseyou have to have a clean crop to
go out.
So it costs you time, costs youmoney, not great.
The problem we run into here isthat this is a perennial plant
(07:50):
that grows aggressively and hasa big, deep taproot.
Taproot is an underground root,typically goes straight down,
and it's there for carbohydratestorage, resource storage,
nutrient storage for the plant,but also to help it find water.
This grows in a lot of reallydry climates very well, and so
it's looking for water deeperunderground.
One of the issues we run intohere is that this taproot has a
(08:14):
large number of nodes or growingpoints along the taproot and if
you leave those nodes intact,even if you remove the
above-ground portions of theplant, it comes back from the
taproot and over and over tillyou give up and move somewhere
else.
Right, it's a challenge.
Again.
There's a reason it's calledone of the worst noxious weeds
in the us.
It is that it's aggressive,grows fast.
(08:38):
It's hard to control.
Some things you can do to getrid of field bindweed,
practically speaking, is likeany other perennial plant that
goes dormant in the winter whenwe get into late summer, early
fall.
That plant is going to workreally hard to store resources
in that taproot so that it cancome back the next year.
So it has the energy it needsto start putting leaves up all
(09:00):
of that.
So if you're one that usessystemic herbicides whatever
kind of herbicide that is timingis super important.
I think where we go wrong islike we see the plant.
It's like I'm going to spray it, we spray it and then it comes
back.
I'm going to spray it again andover and over, and then over
time we can develop resistance.
We can develop a lot of issues,but if we time our applications
(09:24):
thoughtfully, we use way lesschemical and we'd be way more
effective.
So around here where I live inthe northern part of Texas,
around I don't know Labor Day alittle bit, after so late
September into early October, asthe temperatures are starting
to cool down, as the nights arecooling off, that's really the
right time to treat ourperennial plants if we're trying
(09:46):
to get rid of them.
So if we're going to use aherbicide, spray it with our
herbicide then Because whathappens is it gets absorbed into
the leaf and instead of allthat growth coming upwards,
where the chemical gets moved upinto the above ground portions
of the plant, it gets stored inthe taproot and when that
happens we can actually getreally good and really effective
root kill and so you may notget all of it year one, but over
(10:10):
time you can really depletethat prevalence of that plant.
You can deplete how many arethere, and so that's an
effective.
I don't know that's aneffective strategy you can use
just in general.
But a lot of people don't likeusing herbicides and I can
sympathize with that If that'sthe case.
There are some biocontrolmethods.
(10:32):
There are bindweed weevils thatwill burrow into the stem and
chew it up, but they're hard toget.
They're expensive.
If you don't have enoughavailable, the weevils will die
out before your bindweed andthen you know you're back at
square one.
You spend a bunch of money forit.
Really, what you're doing isgoing through this battle of
attrition with field bindweed.
(10:52):
You want to deplete the taproot.
Every time you see a littlebaby plant come up, you get rid
of it.
Every time it comes up, startsphotosynthesizing, starts trying
to store resources down in theroot, you get rid of it over and
over again and over time youcan deplete that taproot and you
can kill the plant.
It's a lot more time consuming,a lot more labor intensive.
(11:13):
It's a lot more work, but ifyou don't want to use herbicides
, that's really your best bet isjust mechanical removal as
often as you see the plant,because what you're trying to do
is not let it storecarbohydrates in the root.
If you can do this, in the fallit's even more effective, right
?
Because that's this criticalgrowth period where it's gonna
store all of its resources andif you can deplete that, then in
(11:33):
the spring it's harder for itto come back up, more
susceptible to climate and a lotof other things.
But yes, they're diabolical.
They're so hard to deal with.
Morning glory and bindweed arereally tough weeds to deal with.
So Rui hit me with fivequestions and I appreciate that
because I need content.
But I think I'm going to save acouple of these, or one of
(11:54):
these for sure, and answer it ina video here in the next couple
of weeks, just for the sake oftime.
But there is a question that Iwanted to answer on the podcast.
It's really very interesting.
So he says is it true thatrelative humidity being in the
right range allows plants togrow better and makes them more
resilient to pests and diseases?
Is it like balancing theinternal hydrological pressure
(12:16):
with the outside atmosphere?
I don't know.
I just saw some things in thegreenhouse and it's got me
thinking that this is such aninteresting question Because in
some ways it's maybecounterintuitive.
In some ways, I think he'sprobably right on here.
Now, as temperature and relativehumidity increase, plants
(12:36):
actually oftentimes become moresusceptible to insects and
diseases.
It tends to be a more favorableenvironment for these things to
grow and develop.
Think of a tropical region.
Right, I'm out here in WestTexas.
It's hot and dry, we seeinsects, we see plant diseases,
but it's fairly minimal.
The climate as it is being dry,being hot, being windy
(12:58):
suppresses some of thosepopulations, more on the disease
side, particularly with fungusand bacteria, than on the insect
side.
But it is is.
You do see suppression in hot,dry climates, especially with
very cold winters like we have,as relative humidity increases
and you get more tropical.
This is a more temperateenvironment for not just our
(13:19):
plants but for our insects, forour pathogens, for the bacteria
and fungi that infect our plants.
So a lot of times we actuallysee an increase in disease
prevalence.
Wet environments are conduciveto bacterial growth, fungal
growth, and a lot of times thesepathogens are getting into the
leaf through a wet leaf surface.
(13:40):
So if it's real humid, it rains, that water sticks on the leaf.
A lot of times it's really easyfor that fungus to get inside
or that bacteria to get inside.
However, I was reading aboutthis and there's some really
interesting studies that sort ofthrow some wrenches in this
general convention.
Now I'm going to say up frontthat the short answer for almost
(14:01):
any biological, botanical,zoological, whatever it is it
depends.
There are so many caveats in somuch gray area.
There is a wide spectrum inbiology for almost anything that
we're talking about, so it'shard to say definitively that
yes or no, this is or isn't Okay.
So the best we can do is teachthrough example.
So it's going to vary.
It's complicated, but one studyI read it was in tomatoes and a
(14:26):
fungus called Botrytis cinerea.
Okay, this is a gray mold.
So you'll see this a lot onyour tomato leaves and it looks
like just a gray mold.
You also see Botrytis reallycommonly.
If you leave a strawberry inthe fridge too long, botrytis
starts to grow and you get thatmoldy stuff on your strawberries
.
Botrytis is ubiquitous.
It's everywhere in theenvironment.
(14:46):
As you and I sit here, wheneveryou're listening to this,
there's Botrytis all around you.
It's not going to hurt you, butit's there, right.
But it can ruin plants.
It can cause photosyntheticcapacity loss.
It can ruin our fruits and ourveggies and so it is problematic
.
So the study looked at tomatoesand the presence of botrytis in
(15:10):
tomato plants at differenttemperatures and relative
humidities, and what they foundis that at low temperatures the
conditions weren't right ingeneral for Botrytis, which is a
fungus, to grow good myceliumand all of that and infect the
plant.
So at low temperature it's nottoo bad.
But as you increase humidity,even in low temperatures, the
prevalence of this fungus doesgo up.
(15:32):
So when we see highertemperatures at relatively low
relative humidities, we seemoderate response and so we
would think as relative humidityand temperature increase, we
should see an increase in theprevalence of this bacteria or
this fungus, this disease, andwe do.
But we also see reducedinfection in the plant.
(15:52):
So while the fungus can growmore effectively in warmer, more
humid environments I'm talkingrelative humidity of 80% and up
it doesn't affect the plant asreadily.
And some of the speculation inthe articles that I read which,
by the way, I'm going to belinking these articles and
giving you the references thatI've used in the show notes in
(16:14):
case you'd like to look some ofthese studies up.
Really interesting stuff.
They postulate that astemperature and relative
humidity increase think theenvironment in a greenhouse the
plant fitness overall increasesas well.
So what that means is, eventhough there's more of the
pathogen present, the plant'shealthier and those plant
defense compounds can actuallydo a much better job of fighting
(16:37):
off infection from ourdifferent things Maybe not
insects as much, but definitelyfungal pathogens, and there's a
lot to this.
Right.
As a plant gets healthier, getsmore fit, it can carry out its
biological functions better.
It can produce these toxinsthat help produce it from
diseases.
It can increase volatileorganic compounds.
It can do a lot of things tohelp make it healthier.
Diseases it can increasevolatile organic compounds.
(16:58):
You can do a lot of things tohelp make it healthier.
What we're really trying to doand one of the big, I think,
high-level ideas behindintegrated pest management is
make your plant as healthy aspossible.
Give your plant the bestenvironment that favors its
growth in its own defense andmaybe disincentivizes the
(17:18):
infection of a pathogen, even ifit's present.
So the answer is yeah, maybe,as relative humidity goes up,
even though a lot of ourdiseases, a lot of our insects,
are happier at that level too,some of our plants may be
happier as well.
Now, this is not necessarilygoing to relate to houseplants.
(17:39):
I think there's again a bigspectrum here, but there are
some interesting results thatcame with it.
I would say in a greenhouseenvironment, yes, you'll get
increased pathogen.
I don't know availability,ubiquity, whatever, but as long
as we're keeping our plantshealthy, they are more able to
tolerate some of these things inthe environment.
(18:01):
Essentially, we're justbuilding up their defenses.
They don't have an immunesystem exactly like you and I do
, but it's not a bad analog.
It's not a bad way to think it.
The healthier we are as a wholesystem, we are, to some extent,
more able to fight off diseaseand have better health overall.
(18:22):
Now, that being said, even avery quote unquote healthy
person can get sick, right?
There are pathogens that willeasily overcome our best
defenses, which is why we havedoctors and medicine and all of
these things, and so the same istrue for your plants.
You have the best darnhealthiest tomato plant in the
world, but when the tomatohornworms show up, they're going
(18:43):
to eat it anyway, which is whythe plant has different
strategies, like releasingvolatile organic compounds to
cull everything from wasps tobirds to come eat the
caterpillars.
There's all kinds of defenses.
So the short answer here ismaybe it's better at high
relative humidity, but itdepends.
And the long answer is thatthis is a complex series of
(19:04):
interactions between a plant andits environment, whether that
is antagonists in theenvironment, insects or harmful
insects quote unquote harmfulinsects and diseases and things
like that or just with theenvironment in general.
So that's a good question andthere's a lot of research on
this.
So I would encourage you, ifthat's something you're
interested in, to check out thelinked articles here.
(19:25):
They're pretty fascinating andjust look into it a little bit
more because it is very cool.
The next question that comes upis from tcarpenter605, also on
threads.
These are all going to comefrom threads today.
Actually, the question is whyisn't rooftop commercial
gardening more popular?
I think that's a great questionand there's a lot to this.
(19:46):
We don't probably have time toget into all the nuance here,
but one of the short answers towhy aren't we rooftop gardening
more because I actually get toask this question a lot,
especially in big cities why arewe not taking all of this roof
space and putting gardens on it?
Okay, there are a couple ofreasons.
One I think rooftop gardens area great idea.
Personally, I think anything wecan do to break up urban heat
(20:10):
islands.
I think that any ways that wecan make our urban real estate
more green, whether that's atthe ground level or up on top of
a building, we should do that.
Okay.
Problems arise with the factthat a lot of buildings are not
built from an infrastructurestandpoint, a structural
standpoint, to support a rooftopgarden, because you know what
(20:31):
Plants are heavy and soil isheavy and what's really heavy is
wet soil.
So you take your building andyou're like you know what this
building has 10,000 square footof roof space.
We're going to put a bigrooftop garden here, cool.
The structural loads of thatbuilding are intended to hold up
natural, normal sort of thingsthat it interacts with Animals,
(20:53):
big rainstorms, snow, whateverto a certain tolerance and a
certain certain capacity.
But then you take a whole bunchof wood and you build raised
beds.
You fill those raised beds withsoil or potting media, you put
plants in there and you growplants and those plants do the
photosynthesis thing and turnall this carbon dioxide in the
air into more plant.
(21:13):
And so you're constantlyincreasing your weight load on
the roofs of these buildingsthat are not designed for it
right.
And then it rains.
Oh my goodness, it rains.
We have a big rainstorm andsoil, if you didn't know, is
really good at holding on towater.
It can absorb many times itsweight in water.
So you get these beds that arealready heavy, full of heavy
(21:34):
plants, full of heavy things,and then you put gallons and
gallons of water on top of it.
By the way, a gallon of waterweighs about eight pounds, just
as a metric to hang on to.
So, one, your roof has to beable to hold this up and, two,
that water has to go somewhere.
(21:56):
Our buildings are a lot of timesdesigned to shed water quickly.
They don't want it necessarilystanding on the roofs, they want
it moving and going awayquickly to shed over the sides
of the building, down drain,whatever, however it is.
But then we build all thesestructures that hold water in
place and water is going to findpath of least resistance to the
(22:18):
ground.
And when there's no resistanceand it can just easily move
across a roof surface and overthe side, okay, cool, when you
hold it in place, maybe the pathof least resistance is through
your office it can weaken thestructure of a roof, which is,
by the way, not great if youwork in that building.
So I believe that we very wellcould replace a lot of our roof
(22:43):
line, a lot of our urban roofspace, with gardens, and I
actually think we should bothcommercially, socially.
It's a great place to eat lunch, it's a great place to do a lot
of things, but we need to bedesigning our buildings with
green infrastructure and we needto be designing our buildings
as we build new ones to supportthe weight, to support all of
the different sort of flow ratesand things that go with plants
(23:07):
growing up there.
So is it a good idea?
Yes, absolutely.
I think so.
I think it requires a lot moreeffort to retrofit an existing
structure to support that Notthat it's impossible, it's done
fairly regularly.
Then it probably is to build anew building already with it set
up that way.
It's a good question.
(23:28):
I'm actually a big component ofrooftop gardening and urban
green space, so I think that issomething that, moving into the
future, we should think moreabout.
But I'm going to take a quickbreak, run some mid-roll stuff
at you and then my lastquestions for today are all
about houseplants.
So we'll tackle those together.
So stick around and we'll beright back.
Hey there, welcome to themid-roll Fancy.
(23:52):
Seeing you here.
How's your mom?
How are your kids?
How's the dog?
Tell your dog I said hi, andalso give your house plants a
nice pat on the head for me.
So first off, I want to thankyou for listening and for being
a part of Plantthropology.
Thanks for all the kind wordsand comments, and just listening
to it and being a part of it,it really means the world to me.
Thanks so much to the TexasTech Department of Plant and
Soil Science.
The really means the world tome.
(24:12):
Thanks so much to the TexasTech Department of Plant and
Soil Science and the DavisCollege of Agricultural Science
and Natural Resources forletting me do the show and
supporting me through it all ofthese years.
Thanks to all the guests thathave actually already agreed to
be on this season.
I've got some great interviewslined up and I cannot wait for
you to hear them.
But again, most of all, thankyou so much.
(24:34):
If you'd like to support plantanthropology, there's different
ways you can do that.
Probably the best way is justto tell your friends about it.
Go tell a friend that likesplants or that you think should
like plants about the show.
There's a big back catalog atthis point and if there's a
topic in plant science you'dlike to learn more about or a
type of person that works inplant science you'd like to
learn more about, I bet you canfind one episode somewhere along
(24:56):
the way that will tickle yourfancy In retrospect.
I don't love that expressionmuch, but that is okay because
people say it.
You can also leave a rating andreview for the show anywhere you
can, whether that's Spotify orApple Podcasts or Podchaser
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Tell me what you think I wear asize five star review Okay.
So if you want to get me a gift, my birthday's not till the
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okay.
So if you wanna get me a gift,my birthday's not till the
(25:17):
summer, but I don't know.
It's a nice surprise sometimes.
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(25:39):
at planthropologypod at gmailcom.
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(25:59):
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(26:20):
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Anyway, we've got a greatseason of Planthropology coming
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Like I mentioned, some reallygood interviews, but if there's
something specific you wouldlike to hear, please let me know
(26:43):
.
And that's all I've got for you.
So let's get into the secondhalf of the episode and do some
more questions.
All right, we are back.
I hope.
I think I pushed the rightbutton, we'll find out.
So some other questions, andthese are all houseplant related
.
So the first one is from myfriend, ben Randall, who goes by
(27:06):
Chef Ben Randall.
He has a great podcast, by theway as well, which I'll link in
the show notes.
But Ben says okay, I've heardvarying reports about whether
indoor plants actually improveair quality.
If they can do, which ones doyou recommend for optimal air
deliciousness in the home?
Air delicious I actually likethat quite a bit.
(27:26):
Make your air more delicious.
Okay, so some things about this.
A lot of the conversation aroundthis goes back to an old study
by NASA, I think, like in the80s, surrounding which kinds of
plants will clean the air.
They're looking atbioremediation for space travel,
other ways that they can useplants as air filtration, things
(27:48):
like that.
Because if we're going tocoexist on another planet
certain people say that we arewe're going to have to have
plants and we got to figure outhow those plants grow in space
and how they're going tomaintain a healthy ecosystem
like they do here on Earth,because they're from Earth and
the things that they do arebased on evolution and
development here on Earth, noton Mars or in a spaceship.
(28:10):
So NASA has been working inastrobiology and astrobotany for
a long time trying to figureout how this works and how to
get its work, and it goes backand forth.
Okay, so there are a bunch ofplants out there that do
potentially make air quality alittle bit better.
So this measurement is calledindoor air quality IAQ and it's
(28:31):
become a bigger concern in ourhomes as we've gotten better at
building homes and that soundsweird, but you've probably heard
of like sick building syndrome.
So in the past buildingsweren't really airtight, right.
They leaked pretty readily.
There was air exchange withinside and outside.
So when you've got molddevelopment, when you got
different things, you would havesome air turnover and the
(28:54):
airflow in and out of the homeWindows were open more.
But in more recent history, iffor energy efficiency, for
making sure that we can heat andcool effectively, we've really
sealed up our houses, and if youclose all the doors and windows
and button everything up,you're just recycling air inside
the home.
Button everything up, you'rejust recycling air inside the
(29:16):
home and it's only when we opena window or open a door that we
get any kind of air exchange,but it's not nearly as much as
we've seen in the past.
So we've seen things like moldincreasing Again.
They call it sick buildingsyndrome.
There's a lot of stuff thatgoes along with it Old buildings
that have been sealed up for along time.
The air quality is really verypoor.
So the thought is, if I putplants in, will it fix it?
So there's a few points here.
Now again, there are a hundreddifferent things we can study
(29:40):
and talk about in terms of howdo plants improve air quality?
If they do, maybe they don't.
One as maybe a high-leveltalking point.
From a human health standpoint,being around plants is good.
From a human health standpoint,being around plants is good.
There are a lot of data outthere looking from everything
from plants in the hospital,plants in your home.
(30:01):
Looking at physical well-being,mental well-being, a lot of
other things, emotionalwell-being.
Being around plants hasphysiological benefits for you,
and this is like long studiedempirical data for things that
we know.
If we are not feeling good,sometimes going outside and
getting some fresh air andwalking around in the park helps
.
There's data to back that up.
(30:21):
Right?
This is real science.
So having plants around goodthing, do it?
Put plants in your house, getsome house plants, put flowers
in there.
Whatever you want to do, it isa net benefit for your health,
whether or not it affects indoorair quality.
But reading some differentstudies and I read two or three
different papers on this acouple of them were review
papers looking at a wide sort ofswath of data, there are some
(30:43):
benefits and there are somethings that probably don't work
as well as we think.
So one of the things that peopletalk about quite a bit is that
having plants in the house willreduce carbon dioxide in the
home, just as a crash course inphotosynthesis.
Plants harvest energy from thesun as photons and then they
pull carbon dioxide out of theair and they go through this
(31:07):
complex cascade of processes toessentially turn radiative
energy, solar heat energy intostored chemical energy in the
form of glucose and othercarbohydrates.
That is photosynthesis.
We're taking carbon out of theair, using energy from the sun,
converting that energy by way ofcarbon dioxide make sugars and
different things.
We're essentially taking heat,radiation energy, and turning it
(31:30):
into chemical potential energy.
Okay, that's the nutshell ofphotosynthesis.
Unfortunately for my students,in about a week after as I
record this, they're going tohave to learn about
photosynthesis in much less of anutshell.
So if you're one of my studentslistening to this, buckle up,
it'll be fine.
The other side of that is, asthey are going through this
process of photosynthesis,they're releasing oxygen into
(31:53):
the atmosphere.
Now, on a global sort ofbalance, it does lead to a net
sort of increase in oxygen, butgenerally it stays pretty
standard.
Right?
The amount of carbon dioxide inthe air, if we are not pumping
(32:13):
additional carbon dioxide intothe air, would stay pretty
stable because all the plants onthe planet, from a molar gas
exchange standpoint, do it at arate that's pretty standard and
pretty normal.
Then we take fossil fuels andwe burn them and we add extra
carbon dioxide and the plantscan't keep up.
So they're producing oxygen,they're sequestering carbon
dioxide, but we're still gettinga net increase in the
(32:35):
atmosphere.
If you're inside your house andyou're breathing, you're taking
in oxygen and other things andusing the oxygen and breathing
out carbon dioxide.
That is respiration, which isthe biological inverse of
photosynthesis.
In a lot of ways, plants arealso respiring.
Every plant cell in generalrespires too.
(32:57):
So they are also consumingoxygen and releasing carbon
dioxide.
It's just that photosynthesis,in the right conditions, in high
light amounts, happens at ahigher rate than respiration.
So a plant, as it's activelyphotosynthesizing, outstrips the
respiration rate right.
So it's producing more oxygenthan it is carbon dioxide, even
(33:19):
though it's always producingboth.
Then we take that plant, we putit in our house in very low
light levels and ourphotosynthesis rate drops.
Okay, so we're stillphotosynthesizing, we're still
respiring, but they're probablydoing at more of an even rate.
Generally speaking, if we want agrowth and development way to
look at this, if your plantisn't growing much, your
(33:42):
photosynthesis and respirationare fairly equal because the
resources that it's pulling inthrough photosynthesis are being
burned at the same rate byrespiration and the plant
doesn't grow.
If your plant starts to grow,then your photosynthetic rate is
usually higher than respiration.
This is an oversimplification,but it's not a bad way to look
(34:03):
at it.
So if you have houseplants thataren't doing much, it's
probably zeroing out.
If you have houseplants thatare actively growing, you may be
getting a little more oxygenthan carbon dioxide produced.
But generally speaking, in lowlight environments this is going
to be fairly close for a lot ofplants, even our tropical and
low light plants.
(34:23):
So from a CO2 standpointprobably doesn't affect the CO2
very much, what I think a lot ofpeople think about is
pollutants.
So, whether these are microbialor particulates like dust and
things like that, or organiccompounds, gases, volatile
organic compounds, things likeformaldehyde and benzenes and
(34:46):
different things like that,could the plant scrub those out?
And the answer is yeah, to acertain extent.
Yeah, one of these studies.
I'm just going to read you aquote out of the study.
The primary effects of thepotential indoor plants on air
quality were reduced pollutantlevels, particularly
formaldehyde, benzene, tolueneremoval, followed by increase in
(35:09):
humidity and decrease intemperature.
In addition, including variousplant species could improve the
effects of indoor vegetation onemulating air quality and
microclimate conditions.
So a couple of things arehappening here.
As the plants grow, yeah, we dosee a potential reduction in
some of these volatile organiccompounds in the air.
The mechanisms for how thishappens are complicated and
(35:32):
maybe not very well understood.
The same is true for dust andother particulates.
But it's true that the plantsare diffusing some of these
compounds into themselvesthrough the stomata.
They're pulling it in as theypull in CO2 and other air, and
it gets metabolized a lot oftimes and stored in the plant as
different things.
That's a good thing.
What we think may be happeningtoo, and at a higher rate, is
(35:55):
actually in the soil that theplant is potted in, because it
turns out that fungi what wecall, which means root fungus or
soil area fungus is really gooda lot of times at pulling some
of these particulates out of theair so it could be diffusion
through the soil and captured bymicro.
It could be captured by theleaves.
(36:17):
They found that one plant maynot be better than another, but
differences in density on thebottom of the leaves, leaf size,
leaf shape, different things.
If you have a whole bunch ofthem and different kinds, it's
probably better than just having, like, just a fiddle leaf, fig
or whatever house.
So we see some difference insome of these things and
actually some improvements inindoor air quality.
(36:38):
One study I looked at which wasreally interesting was looking
at what if we took an activerole in this and instead of just
saying these plants are goingto passively filter the air,
what if we let them activelyfilter the air?
And they looked at taking fansor different types of air
movement devices and actuallyforcing air through the soil,
(36:59):
through the plant canopy,through different things, and
this probably showed some of thebigger reductions in volatile
organic compounds and differentthings in the air.
So maybe we just buildbiofilters in our house, I don't
know.
Can plants improve indoor airquality?
Yes, but it's complicated andit doesn't do everything.
Should you still have plants inyour house?
(37:20):
I vote absolutely yes.
I vote yes.
They are good for you.
Whether they pull formaldehydeout of the air, they're a good
thing, okay, sort of taggingonto that, my friend Farm
Traveler, who has a greatpodcast and YouTube series as
well, said what are the bestindoor plants for low light
conditions?
There's a bunch of them, butI'm going to say my probably top
(37:43):
three are pothos, snake plantand zizi plant.
These are plants.
Prayer plant is up there.
Sometimes a fitonia or nerveplant can do pretty well, but
you want things that are goingto generally have a dark green
color, a waxy cuticle, that aregoing to take low light
conditions.
Now I will say every plant, anyplant, any house plant wants
(38:04):
light, whether that's indirectlight from a window or whatever.
Bright indirect light is goingto be great for your house
plants.
You can use grow lights.
You can use different things.
They.
Indirect light is going to begreat for your houseplants.
You can use grow lights.
You can use different things.
They need light.
It's just that some of theseare a little bit better suited
to growing in somewhat lowerlight conditions.
So what I would say is go, lookin the shade area of your
(38:25):
garden center, look inside theconservatory parts and try some
different ones.
But for my money it's hard tobeat a snake plant, it's hard to
beat pothos in low lightconditions, and ZZ plant,
prairie plant and nerve plant dopretty well as well.
Tagging onto that, just JessVice asks why are fiddle leaf
figs so fickle?
(38:46):
Yeah, yeah, they are, they are.
Fiddle leaf figs are probablylike the most dramatic
houseplant you could have.
You look at them wrong and theydrop half their leaves.
You move them and goodness,they'll complain a lot and drop
all of their leaves.
They like being in one place,which makes some sense, right?
Plants don't move really.
(39:09):
And if you think of anunderstory plant that's growing
under other things in a tropicalenvironment, the environment
doesn't change much.
It's the light conditions arestable, the air conditions and
temperature and rainfall andeverything else.
It's fairly stable.
It really doesn't change muchover time.
And in a natural setting ifthere is this big change in
(39:30):
light, in water, in temperature,there's probably a large
disturbance.
That's trees falling down,that's canopy changes, they're
going to let more light in ormore wind through or whatever.
A protective response of a lotof plants is when there is a lot
of stress, when the environmentchanges, they drop their leaves
to reduce the amount of waterthat they have to move through
(39:50):
the system, because the water isreleased to the environment
through the leaves.
Leaves can be expensive for theplant to maintain from a
resource standpoint.
While, yes, that's how they gettheir carbohydrates through
photosynthesis, they can usuallygo a little while on stored
reserves until maybe disruptionsin the environment stop right.
They get better.
(40:11):
So you take your house, plantyour fiddle leaf fig that's
happy in a certain corner andyou're like you know what.
It looks goofy in this corner,it should be in that corner and
you move it to that corner.
The plant immediately goes, ah,danger and it thinks like a
tree has fallen.
They don't think things, butlike it's a disruption in its
environment.
So you just have to give ittime.
(40:32):
Usually, most fiddle leaf figs,if you move them from one light
environment to another, onetemperature environment to
another where they can't see theTV, I don't know they tend to
drop a bunch of leaves.
Generally those leaves comeback.
If that's the case, just keepthem well watered.
Try not to disturb the root,the area of the root zone, as
much as possible.
Keep them well watered.
(40:53):
Keep them at a temperature thatis consistent.
Don't put them by a super coldwindow where they're going to
get big blasts of differenttemperature air Probably.
Don't put them by a door,necessarily.
Put them somewhere where it'sgoing to be very consistent and
over time they will leaf backout.
Usually it doesn't even takethat long and they'll keep
growing.
But yes, fiddle leaf figs superdramatic.
(41:14):
They're gonna make a messanytime.
The last question I want toanswer and I don't have a good
answer for it and I'm not evensure this is what she was asking
, but I'm gonna answer thequestion I think she was asking.
It's from Bonnie Brantley ofthe Oz9 podcast.
Bonnie asks where do we go?
(41:35):
What do we do?
Y'all?
I don't know.
Things are weird right now froman environmental standpoint,
from an academic standpoint, fora lot of things, and I think
the question of what do we donow is probably on a lot of
people's hearts and minds.
It's on mine for sure.
My wife and I have had a lot ofconversations about this.
The one thing I know we don'tdo is quit, and what I mean is
(41:56):
quit our jobs, sure, but alsoquit building community, quit
being good to each other, quittaking care of our planet in the
ways that we can through thepower that we have, quit asking
for better from the peopleleading us right.
I don't think we quit.
I don't think we ever do,because it turns out that hope
is powerful and that just movingforward is powerful.
(42:17):
Bonnie, I don't know what we do,I don't know where we go, but
forward, but on.
And that's about the best I got.
And if you're asking acompletely different question,
let me know and I'll try toanswer that one.
But that's how that read to meand that is actually what's been
on my mind a lot recently.
So where do we go?
What do we do?
I don't know what the next stepis, but I know that we have to
(42:39):
take it Right.
We have to keep moving, andthat's what I'm going to try to
do, and I hope that's whatyou're trying to do, and I'm
going to keep answeringquestions and talking to cool
plant people and talking abouthow cool nature is in our
environment is and how preciousit is and how much we have to
protect it.
That's my job and I think,whatever you feel like your job
(43:01):
is in this world and I don'tjust mean the thing that gives
you a paycheck, but like yourfunction, your purpose hold on
tight to that.
Do that.
Okay, that's all I got.
Thanks for listening, thanks forbeing part of Planthropology.
Again, thanks to you, thelistener most.
First and foremost, thank youfor believing in the show and
believing what we do.
Thanks for your comments andjust for being cool, okay.
(43:24):
Thanks to the Texas TechDepartment of Plant and Soil
Science for all the support.
Thanks to the award-winningcomposer, nicholas Scout, for
the theme music for the show.
Planthropology is written,hosted, produced whatever else
it is that people do forpodcasts by me and it's
supported by you.
And just your time and yourattention.
(43:45):
I love you.
I think you are the best.
Keep being kind to one another,especially now.
If you have not, to this time,been kind to the people around
you, maybe give that a try.
It's pretty cool.
Be good, be safe and keep beingreally cool.
Plant people and we'll talk ina couple of weeks.
Thank you.
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