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Botany experiment to see the volume of space covered underground inroots versus above ground vegetation
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 |
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possible easy test Botany experiment to see the volume of spacecovered underground in roots versus above ground vegetation
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 |
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