Green Options » fertilization

Pollinators Hampered by Air Pollutants

Michael Ricciardi — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:50:16 +0000

A syrphid fly (Eristalinus taeniops) pollinating a Common Hawkweed

Pollinators, such as bees, flies and wasps, depend on sensing the minute by steady stream of hydro-carbon molecules emitted by flowering plants to lead them to their target destination. There, the insects gather pollen (as a food source) and inadvertently transfer this genetic packet from the male anther to the female stigma, enabling fertilization (known as syngamy, the joining of germ cells).

This ancient, mutually beneficial arrangement insures each new generation of the flowering plant. It has probably been going since shortly after the first flowering plants (angiosperms) appeared on earth some 250 million years ago. Industrial air pollution is now hampering this ancient relationship.

Terra Preta for Carbon Reduction

Philip Proefrock — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:56:50 +0000

Terra preta (or agrichar, as it is also sometimes called) is not a new concept, but it is probably unfamiliar to most readers. The term terra preta refers to rich black soils found in the Amazon. These soils are not natural, but were human-made, produced by the civilizations living in the region before the arrival of Western settlers. The terra preta has a high level of nutrients, with three times the nitrogen and phosphorus and twenty times the carbon of normal soils. But producing fertilizer is not even the most interesting part of agrichar. The agrichar process also releases gasses which can be used as fuel for electrical generation or even for powering vehicles, and, most interestingly of all, more carbon goes back to the earth than was released in the process.