Archimedes Plutonium wrote:
Now I wonder if any botany experiments have been conducted to
see how much biovolume goes on underground versus the vegetation
above ground biovolume.

I remember some scientist a long time ago remark that if we lived
underground, that the root system of plants would occupy about the
same volume as the vegetative growth above ground.

Now I am skeptical of that assessment. Perhaps some grass roots
are more extensive underground than their vegetative biovolume
above ground, but I do not believe that tree roots are equivalent
biovolume below ground as above ground.

I suppose an experiment can be set up and conducted where a
scoop schovel lifts dirt and roots and all where they are sorted out
and tabulated.

But maybe there is a method that is not destructive of any plants.
Maybe there is a method that we can get an accurate estimate
of the root volume.

I suppose on tomatoes hydroponically grown we can directly
measure if the root volume approaches that of the vegetative
volume.

There was a recent NOVA program on fractals as appearing
in the branching of trees. So I suspect that fractals probably are
appearing in the root volume versus the above ground vegetative
volume. It seems reasonable to me that the energy of a plant
is from the Sun so the larger volume would be the vegetative
volume. But then some plants invest alot of their energy in
underground root structure as a form of reproduction rather
than above ground in seed production.

So has there been any botany experiments of a math relationship
of underground biovolume versus above ground biovolume of plants?

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

A possible test came to mind today over this issue. And it is not
destructive
of a test plot with its trees or vegetation. It assumes that the
volume of a site
that has no vegetation has a smaller soil volume than another test
equal in all
means except for the existence of plants in the soil and that plant
cover would
increase the soil level to be higher than the corresponding plant-free
plot.

So a way of testing this assumption would be to get a flask of soil
and to place a
tomato plant in it. Measure the soil level before the tomato plant and
then measure
the soil level once the tomato plant has grown mature. It is
reasonable to expect an
increased level of the soil to accomodate all those roots. Get some
numbers from
this test.

Now extrapolate for a forest area. That if there were no plants at
all, the soil level
would be a smaller height than if the same land were covered in
forest. And thus
a numbers measure of how much the soil contained of root plant volume.

I think some of us already have seen evidence of this in the case of
some trees
elevating the soil around the trunck.

So here would be a progress in answering the question of whether the
amount of
plant volume below ground is equal to the amount of plant volume above
ground.

I believe the answer is going to favor above ground plant volume but
am curious
as to whether fractal mathematics is the correct ratio of plant volume
below ground
versus plant volume above ground.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies