Thu, 07 Oct 2004 05:24:33 GMT Christopher Green wrote:
On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 23:19:25 -0500, Archimedes Plutonium
wrote:
Christopher Green wrote:
North Dakota Agricultural Extension reports that the color of some
Amur maples varies with soil conditions, but gives no details. So you
might be right.
Unless you have an Amur maple variety selected for color, such as the
common 'Flame', their color is somewhat variable.
--
Chris Green
Yes, I am of the opinion that color is not cultivar dependent because one year a tree can be
yellow and another year red. The likely candidate is water to give such variance.
Well, that puts you on one side and everybody else on the other,
because it is well-known to the many nurserymen who deal in Amur
maples that the color is mainly dependent on the variety.
Some varieties are variable in color, and it is these that may exhibit
color variation from year to year or dependent on conditions.
Now if we broke off a branch of amur maple it will turn from green to yellow brown, never red.
And because Fall color coincides with the sap and water draining out.
Coincidence does not imply causality.
If I could get some chemistry of compounds which cause the red color and if it can be shown that
this compound is water dependent would be strong evidence that water is the factor between
yellow or red.
The chemistry of these compounds is extremely well known, but it must
be that it is well known to everybody but yourself. It is only your
complete ignorance of the subject that prevents you from realizing how
silly you sound.
--
Chris Green
Chris, I have the benefit of opening my front door and seeing about 50 different amur maples in my
front yard, but I suspect that you are talking about something which you do not have any direct
experience with.
For example I notice that many of those amur maples have started out this year with a deep crimson
almost purple color over 80% of the leaves yet a red color on its topmost leaves and as the days
wear-on those purplish leaves turn more red. I notice on a few that the green leaves have turned to
yellow for 80% of the tree but on its outermost edges of its top leaves are flaming red.
So what does this tell me. It tells me that the NorthDakota answer of soil conditions would not be
the cause of why trees are yellow one year and no red at all and other years have a mix of red,
purple, yellow. It tells me that amur maples are not soil-condition dependent because the soil does
not change from a yellow year to the next year being red.
It tells me that the color is not cultivar dependent because genes do not change or vary from one
year to the next.
It does tell me with ample evidence that the Dependency of whether it is yellow or red is due to
water and water flow out of leaves in Autumn. Water explains why the edges of a leave are red yet
the interior as purple crimson. Water explains why the outer fringes of the tree leaves are red yet
the interior leaves are green or yellow.
Water movement explains the variability.
Now, Chris, you claim the chemistry of color is well known. Pardon me if I doubt your claim. For I
have the hunch you just made that statement up in some thin air. I go back to my same point-- that
if we knew the chemistry of tree leaves color that given ample water as in the growing season it is
green, but as the tree begins its Autumn hibernation and its water removal and sap running down that
somehow the lack of water in leaves and some of those leaf molecules give the appearance of purple,
red or yellow.
So, Chris, I need to know of a molecule compound in tree leaves that reacts to water to give either
green, purple, red or yellow, and also brown.
It is not soil conditions and it is not cultivar genetics that creates this variance in amur maples.
Chris, you are beginning to sound as stubborn as President Bush and obviously resorting to name
calling. Keep in mind that my posts are not campaigns but rather instead a digging into science.
Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies