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Exactly, where is the plant mass coming from? Can bacteria break soil down into carbon that the plant can use to build more leaves/stems/roots?
by minikites 12y ago
Exactly, where is the plant mass coming from? Can bacteria break soil down into carbon that the plant can use to build more leaves/stems/roots?
- CapitalistCartr 12y agoThe Daily Fail version claims so, but that doesn't seem sufficient. Nonetheless, its clearly working. It'd be interesting to insert a probe through the cork and run a real-time analysis of the air composition.
- minikites 12y agoHmm. So over time the soil mass will decrease into nothing as the plant expands?
- kordless 12y agoBits of the plant are going to decay back into soil.
- saalweachter 12y agoMost of the mass of plants comes from the atmosphere, not the soil. 95%+ of a given plant is oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon. The soil provides trace elements and a place from which to absorb water.
- darkxanthos 12y agoI don't think we can say it's clearly working... This seems like an extraordinary claim and it's hard to know if there's any truth fudging.
- droopyEyelids 12y agoAnother puzzling factor is the clarity of the glass. When I've seen bottle gardens, they all develop a thick scum from minerals in condensation, algae, and bacterial plaques.
- gnufied 12y agoThere is also, Cellular respiration in night within the plant itself, which release some CO2 in the atmosphere. So may be combined with CO2 released by Bacteria and Cellular respiration in plant, it can survive.
- zhemao 12y agoAerobic bacteria takes in oxygen and produces CO2 in the same way that animals do.
- quodestabsurdum 12y agoThe container was last watered twelve years after it was planted. Twelve years is plenty of time for most plants (especially something many people would consider a weed) to reach that size. At this point it's simply in maintenance mode - similar to a bonsai which never requires trimming.