4 ms·
At a guess, because trees are the skyscrapers of the plant world - mosses and grasses can only spread in 2D.
by blacksmith_tb 5y ago
At a guess, because trees are the skyscrapers of the plant world - mosses and grasses can only spread in 2D.
- roughly 5y agoInterestingly, this isn't true of prairie grasses - their root structures can go several feet deep and make up most of the biomass of the plant. They're really underrated with regard to how much structure they make.
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoAh good point. I guess I have heard that alfalfa has remarkable roots[1] - 15m is a lot of root! 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfalfa#Ecology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfalfa#Ecology
- tagami 5y agoWe are sending M. Sativa (alfalfa, lucerne) into space this October in our 10th plant mission in microgravity under a global education project with UN and others called “carbon farmer”. Stressors in microgravity could shed clues on optimization for a changing climate and off-world production. Post flight research (tomography, electron microscopy, single cell transcriptomics) is being done at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the Joint Genomics Institute. HTTPS://magnitude.io
- gcthomas 5y agoTrees don't absorb any more sunlight than an equivalent area of grassland, so I'd be surprised if mature woods sequestered any more CO₂ than grasslands did.
- dragonwriter 5y agoYou are confusing flows (initial rate of sequestration starting with newly planted land) with stocks (amount sequestered at peak), I think.