Root System Drawings
images.wur.nl
images.wur.nl
Did you know that wheat in the US is sprayed with glyphosate right before harvest? It causes all the wheat to dry evenly, avoiding the need to cut down the wheat and windrow it for drying. This means extra weeks in the growing season to squeeze another crop in.
That drawing is from a very rare specimens too. Most dandelions do not grow that deep.
there are ten mm in a cm
456cm == 4560mm
there are 24.5 mm per inch (it is the law).
4550mm / 25.4 = 179.527 inches
or about 14.9 feet
which is about 5 yards
which is 20% of a 'murican football field if that helps
Their 13 cm high plant specimen had a 456 cm deep root.
Using them depends on the delicate combination and application of brute force and technique. If your technique and brute force is up to spec, a crowbar works as a makeshift weed puller.
It doesn't get everything but I can do more work on the tough ones when so many come right out.
https://www.amazon.com/CobraHead-Original-Weeder-Cultivator-...
Not that it gets to the bottom of my dandelions ofc, but it sure feels like it does!!
we'd like to know how much of that weed would your weed puller pull if your weed puller pulled a full pull?
In any case, very cool to have such a collection.
Modern methods like xray CT or ground penetrating radar can do it nondestructively in the field but they’re usually expensive to set up compared to just sending some grad students to dig.
At the very least, you've taken a 3D system and reduced it to 2D. Additionally, you're exposing not only the root system but the entire microbiome around them to light and, almost certainly, unless you were incredibly meticulous about sealing, oxygen.
But yeah, that's what I mean.
The traditional way of transplanting large trees while keeping the root system intact is with a hydrovac. A machine the size of a jet engine that liquifies the soil with water and then vacuums it up. [1]
More recent developments have tried using an AirSpade which doesn’t use water but compressed air to blow apart and then suck the soil without making a slurry which is better as the soil can be redeposited in the same hole rather than discarded[2]
Air spades in particular are primarily used for rootwork, not transplanting. Bareroot methods are used for smaller trees. Bare rooting leaves roots in a very vulnerable state, so doing it on larger trees you intend to move and keep alive is a serious logistical challenge.
The most traditional method I can think of is "ball and burlap" where root balls are cut free in the field, and retrieved later in the season for final packaging.
71 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39974646
16 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29672733
18 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29672733
As a weird example, a web app may be like the exposed plant above ground while the roots are that developer’s knowledge. The plant is what others see, but the roots are the intricate system that was required to create the plant.
[0] https://images.wur.nl/digital/collection/coll13/search/searc...
[1] https://images.wur.nl/digital/collection/coll13/search/searc...
(There are so many plant metaphors in mathematics!)
I guess all these differences translate into how the root must structurally develop to satisfy all those requirements and constraints.
I always suspected that rivers are like trees - they also might have a hierarchy of streams (root system) inside the sea. Sometimes this root system is exposed to above "ground" in the form of deltas and streams around them.
Your version of the question has surprising perspective- I think you are asking what the "it" of the plant is. That's an interesting personification of a plant. I think it points to the fact that plants may be safer underground- for anchoring, for not being eaten, for getting shielded from harsh elements.
Like: am I walking on them? Are they tapping down somewhere deep or are they shallow.
The examples on a hill were interesting; I would have thought the extent would be skewed but it was fairly even
Today I finished picking tomatoes from my tomato plants and pulled them up to avoid them rotting in the field as the temperature goes down. It was curious to see how the root systems varied both between the two tomato varieties I had planted, the location of the plant in relation to surrounding grass, and the type of soil they ended up in.
https://doc.sagemath.org/html/en/reference/combinat/sage/com...