Ask HN: How to Learn Basic Botany?
I enjoy looking after plants, but I'd like to learn the principles of things like pH, Nutrients, Soil Biome, etc. What is a good source to get started learning?
If you really want to learn it thoroughly,look for the printed manual for plant physiology and biochemistry. But that will be boring (if you are not a real science freak).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008K8HACU/ref=kinw_myk_ro...
I think from there you'd have a sense of the topics you'd want to pursue and should have enough knowledge to be able to use the right search terms to find it.
- books, just search it on amazon
- youtube tutorials
Then I try to practice it, trial and error while subscribing to various forums like Reddit, plantedtank, barreport, facebook groups for troubleshootings
Toss seeds of stuff you eat around your yard. Watch as plants fail to grow. I grew one potato this year, 'cause I buried one randomly backyard. It was small, but delicious.
My forest strawberry died. Wish I had another two, but only planted the one...
I'd consider approaching the topic by researching the ecology of the plants that you have around you, whether those you cultivate at home or the ones you see on your walks, etc. (Lots of good apps for helping you cheat the learning curve for identifying species or groups of plants). You might start to notice patterns in their distribution (if they're growing relatively naturally). Just learning some interesting facts about their adaptations to their native range can be a great way to start into botany. Those observations are all pieces of the puzzle that you can eventually start to see describe the plant: the preferred or required soil characteristics, symbiotic relationships, light or moisture levels, natural enemies, and the ranges of toleration of a given species (or even individual with a given history and health). I've typically had a harder time holding my attention when coming at those topics from a more theoritical or high-level apporach... I guess meaning I am more engaged with something like, "Why are some of Californian's oak trees evergreen?" than "How do nutrient concentrations affect plants?".
But it depends what excites you. Perhaps purchasing an inexpensive loupe (a.k.a. hand lens, or jeweler's lens; you can also just look through binoculars backwards as an effective way of magnifying specimens close at hand) would be a nice way to get to know plants differently. When I hear "botany" (as opposed to plant ecology, or any other number of related fields). I think pistils and stamens (parts of flowers) and leaf shapes and growth forms. But I also I think variation in modes of photosynthesis (C3, C4, etc.). I think about the difference between thorns, spines, and prickles- all poky, but with different ontogeny. Just learning about the plants around you, looking at them from very close up and from far away, smelling, touching, and tasting them (using reasonable discretion), and trying to learn what they're called and how they're related to each other can be a super effective way to pick up usable knowledge of all of the topics you've mentioned.
It's all cool to someone (me), but I'd just start in from the angle that you find most interesting because in the end you'll find it is all connected in a rather beautiful way. Pick a thread and pull. There are a million books- I'd go with one that will help you get to know the specific organisms around you.