Botany of Desire

Botany of Desire 

Apple:

Each apple seed carries a variety of traits. An apple's appearance and taste are rarely passed from seeds. If an apple is planted by seed, the apples grown are often bitter tasting and used to make hard cider. Graphing is a form of planting apples that creates an exact copy of the apple. These apples will be sweeter and appeal to mammals leading to the spread of the apple's genes.

Humans have the ability to express certain traits through the way an apple tree is planted. There are infinite types of apples and each tree has many different types. No two apples are the same and genetic modification can be used to make precise improvements to apples. Crossbreeding is used to purposefully make a specific kind of apple. Apples have the ability to manipulate humans through their sweetness. Different sweetnesses of apples determine how humans use the apples and if a similar apple tree is planted. 

Curious Questions:

How many varieties of apples are grown in the US?

Over 2,500 varieties of apples are grown in the US. The top varieties are Red Delicious, Gala, Granny Smith, and Fuji. 

What season do apples grow the most?

Most apples ripen between late summer and late fall. Apples grow best in mild climates where the temperature does not increase above 90 degrees. Apples can grow in warmer and colder climates, but if the temperature is too extreme the fruit can be damaged. This would lead to a smaller crop. 

Tulip:

Bees and humans both regard flowers as beautiful. There is a preference for tulips and individuals like certain patterns and scents. Tulips originated in Southeast Asia and made their way to Turkey and then spread throughout the rest of the world. The tulip has become a big part of the dutch culture because, in the 17th century, the tulip was a major trading product in Holland. 77% of all flower buds come out of the Netherlands. A tulip bulb once sold for $10 to $15 million.

Humans can manipulate tulips through the way they are planted. Planting a bulb is the only way a matching tulip will go. Humans can make tulips disease resistant and plant different colors of tulips. The tulip's beauty captivates humans and has swept many cultures into a frenzy. There are performances to celebrate tulips and the tulip has grown to represent success. Visitors travel to see tulips such as Keukenhof in Holland, which is the largest tulip garden in the world. 

Curious Questions:

Can one replant tulips that have already bloomed?

Do not transplant bulbs that have bloomed, because the bulb could die or fail to produce flowers the next year. 

What is the rarest tulip?

The rarest tulip is the black tulip. These tulips are very expensive and are often given to congratulate someone on an achievement.

Cannabis:

Many cultures tolerate cannabis and many think poorly of the plant. Cannabis has the ability to alter one's consciousness. THC is the molecule in the drug that makes people high. THC activates an unknown receptor in the brain which communicates with body chemicals. A connection has been found between THC and memory loss and there are hopes that this research will lead to treatments for trauma. The question of whether cannabis is a demon or savior is an ongoing debate. 

Humans have the technology to transform cannabis into many forms. Marijuana can be made into food form or smoked. Most cannabis comes from Mexico and is transported all over the world through human manipulation. Cannabis has the power to manipulate humans through the plant's ability to alter the human mind. The drug manipulates a human's mind and allows an individual to experience an altered consciousness. Pain relief is a common reason many use cannabis. The plant has had such an impact on many groups including the jazz world which is soaked in cannabis. 

Curious Questions:

Is Marijuana an addictive drug?

Marijuana use can lead to Marijuana use disorder which means one is unable to stop the use of the drug even if the continuation affects a user's life and relationships. Marijuana is also considered a gateway drug meaning the use of marijuana can lead a person to use more dangerous drugs. 

What percent of cannabis users are medical?

17% of individuals who used cannabis in the past year used cannabis medically. 

Potatoes:

The potato has made a major impact and the potato changed the course of European history. The Irish planted one kind of potato which was a staple diet. The potato did well in the North and the poor soils of Ireland. This singular crop caused a famine forcing millions to leave their homeland as refugees.

Insects and fungi have the power to kill potatoes in large quantities. Humans manipulate potatoes by spraying chemical pesticides on potatoes which protects the potatoes. Many crops including the potato are genetically modified. The BT gene is added to potatoes which creates a protein that kills the harmful potato beetles. Potatoes have contributed to the human diet for thousands of years. The potato has been processed into many forms for humans, including french fries. Fast food restaurants often make delicious french fries which manipulate a human's diet. 

Curious Questions:

What stopped the potato famine in Ireland?

The potato famine ended in 1849 when the British troops stopped removing the food. The famine disappeared with time and when the farmers stopped planting the infected potato. 

What percent of potatoes are contaminated with pesticides?

83% of potatoes sampled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture were contaminated with pesticides.

Quick Links:

Human Mind-Control by Plants

How GMO Crops Impact Our World

Works Cited:

Apple Tree. Kinnucan, kinnucan.com/apple-tree-care/. Accessed 31 May 2022.

Potato Benefits. Healthline, 12 May 2018, www.healthline.com/nutrition/ 
     how-to-store-potatoes. Accessed 31 May 2022.

The Botany of Desire. Written by Michael Pollan, a PBS documentary. 

Vlasova, Evgeniya. The Spruce. The Spruce, www.thespruce.com/ 
     tulips-planting-and-growing-tulips-1402137. Accessed 31 May 2022.

Botany of Desire

 Apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes and juggernauts in their own ways. However, all four plants share a common feature; they are constantly surrounding human culture. Recently I watched a documentary called Botany of Desire that talked and educated me on how intertwined humans and these four plants are. So today, I want to share my takeaways with you!

I would probably have scurvy as a child if not for apples (maybe I'm being a little dramatic). Apples were my fruit, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" was said to me once, and I was determined to never see the doctor again. After watching the segment on apples, I realized how conditioned I was to view apples as something safe, healthy, and homey. Humans market apples as healthy as well as relying on the need for sugar that is wired in our brains. The marketing works! But with the large popularity of apples, issues of monoculture have come about. Sweet apple trees can only be guaranteed to pass down the sweet fruit if a cutting of the old tree is used. Meaning that very few apples have new DNA recombination. Most are similar if not the same DNA; having low genetic diversity leads to pests and viruses being able to attack many apple trees quickly. Apples are at risk of pests to the extent that over half a million dollars are spent on pesticides a year! If we want apples to stay in our lives, trying outside the normal types of apples could protect all apples and our love for them for years to come.

(Image Credit: gettyimages)

Tulips were the NFTs of 1630's Holland. The rich used their tulips as a show of wealth and luxury, again not unlike the NFTs of today's world. But my favorite thing about tulips and NFTs is how utterly useless both things are, yet they have managed to seem important. Tulips in Holland were able to manipulate humans into believing the flower was valuable by adapting to produce over 2000 varieties with the goal of intriguing the human eye. Tulips accomplished their goal of staying in the spotlight, and in doing so tulips were given plenty of land and space to reproduce and expand the tulip population. While the tulip manipulated humans into becoming pollinators for the species, humans also manipulated the tulip to create new colors and patterns. The most famous and expensive tulips were multicolored that came about due to a mutation caused by a virus. But the flower suffered from human manipulation; the plant was weak and often would grow shorter and stunt more over time. By humans trying to replicate the splashes of color in other tulips, they allowed a virus to pass through and destroy tulip lines.

(Image Credit: The Biking Gardener)

Cannabis is a taboo issue in U.S. society. But regardless of people's standings on the social implications of cannabis, the science behind keeping the plants alive and well is nothing short of amazing. Cannabis, when forced inside due to the war on drugs movement of the 1970s, was completely reinvented by humans. The plant was selectively bred to be smaller in order to survive inside. A colony of all-female plants is tended to and given a variety of nutrients to keep them healthy, and lights are put on the plants to mimic the outside world. Female cannabis has more psychoactive elements due to the stickers they produce to collect male pollen, so humans manipulated the plants to have female offspring and keep male plants nearby to induce more stickers to be created. THC is how cannabis manipulates people, the substance that creates the high that alters our state of consciousness. Humans' innate drive to change states of consciousness makes people want to keep the plant alive and well. Cannabis uses this want of humans to increase the number and locations cannabis is found.

(Image Credit: Jan Fries/ Getty Image)

When I think of history and the potato, the first event to come to mind is the Irish Potato famine. Based on the abundance of potatoes the Irish farmed, I thought that potatoes originated from the island; but the potato started life in Peru, so how did the potato get to Ireland? The potato entices the Europeans into bringing back the plant with them to Europe. The potato is hardy, heavy and full of starch. All these qualities made the potato look like an answer to everyone's prayers. The potato was an answer to famine; just one-half acre of potatoes could feed a family for a year! The starch added sugars to people's diets, and the plant could survive just about anywhere, even the previously desolated Ireland. The potato created the opportunity of a lifetime for the species; now, the plant was living on two separate continents and being spread throughout the world. But like with the tulip, humans also want a chance to control the plants as much as the plants control them. The potatoes became a monoculture, with only the lumper being chosen by the Irish as the superior potato. Soon many fields carried lumpers alone, killing the plant's biodiversity. But human attempts to control the potato led to disaster. With only one type of potato present and one small set of protective genes, a virus swept through the plants. Killing the potatoes and one of every eight people in Ireland.

(Image credit: Massimo Ravera via Getty Images)

Works Cited

Professional gardener. “Beauty or Beast?” The Biking Gardener, 31 May 2016,  thebikinggardener.com/2016/06/01/beauty-or-beast/.

Greenberg, Andy. “Weed Sales on the Dark Web Surged Early in the Pandemic.” Wired, Conde Nast, 5 June 2020, www.wired.com/story/dark-web-cannabis-sales-surged-pandemic/.

“How Climate Change Could Kill the Red Apple.” BBC Future, BBC, www.bbc.com/future/article/20191119-how-climate-change-could-kill-the-red-apple.Szalay, Jessie. “Potato Nutrition Facts & Health Benefits.” LiveScience, Purch, 16 Feb. 2022, www.livescience.com/45838-potato-nutrition.html.