Agriculture

2. Water has excellent solvent action.

It has the ability to dissolve many compounds, thereby forming aqueous solutions with these compounds.

This is the reason why it is commonly referred to as the universal solvent.

Those molecules which readily dissolve in water are called hydrophilic (“water loving”).

Nonionized and nonpolar molecules that are not attracted to water are referred to as hydrophobic (“water hating” or “water fearing”).

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Charles Barnes (1858-1910) and Conway MacMillan (1867-1929).

Charles Reid Barnes and MacMillan were responsible for the term “photosynthesis”.

Prof. Barnes, an American botanist, was born in Madison, Indiana in 1858.

He acquired a degree from Hanover College in 1877 and then studied at Harvard University.

From 1882 to 1887, he taught botany at Purdue University after which he went to the University of Wisconsin.

Beginning in 1898, he was with the University of Chicago as a professor of plant physiology (Purdue University 2011).

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The process of photosynthesis in plants consists of a complex series of biochemical reactions.

It converts CO2 into carbohydrates which involve the reduction of carbon with H₂O as a reductant.

Reduction is a chemical reaction that results in the gain of electrons, a gain of hydrogen, or a loss of oxygen.

The reverse reaction is called oxidation which involves the removal of electrons from an atom, ion, or compound, or removal of hydrogen, or gain of oxygen.

The reduction of a substance also involves the oxidation of another, as in photosynthesis.

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Caused by the same fungus Phytophthora palmivora, the disease is known by various names depending on the plant organ that is affected.

This is the most feared disease which affects different parts of durian in all stages of development.

It is responsible for the death of many durian trees in the orchards located in several countries.

Root rot affects the root which results to the weakening of the tree and, ultimately, death.

Patch canker or stem canker starts with a gum-like substance that exudes from a lesion on the bark of the stem.

This lesion enlarges and when it is able to surround the entire trunk, the branches start to die back.

Eventually, the tree defoliates and die.

This disease commonly infects mature trees during the wet season.

The infection starts from wounds, cracks, or entry holes of shot-hole borers on the stem.

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The ascent of water in plants has become an interesting subject of inquiry for many years.

Many theories have been proposed but not a single one has yet been recognized unanimously as an exacting explanation.

The transpiration pull is just one of the mechanisms that explain water movement in plants, particularly water ascent in tall trees. 

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Yes, there is plant sex, at least in accordance with the same manner that we perceive sexuality in humans.

Within the same reproductive organ called flower in angiospermous plants, there may be separate tissues that perform functions similar to the sexual organs in humans.

These are the stamen and the pistil.

The stamen is commonly referred to as the flower’s male part while the pistil is the female part.  

Such a flower in which both the stamen and the pistil are present is called perfect or bisexual.

Plants bearing perfect flowers only are called hermaphrodytes, such as most cereals, beans, peas, and solanaceous plants.

Otherwise, if the flower has only one reproductive part, it is called imperfect or unisexual.

Unisexual flowers are of two kinds.

The stamen-bearing flowers are called staminate flowers while the pistil-bearing flowers are called pistillate flowers.

These two flower variants are commonly referred to as male and female flowers, respectively.

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An edible flower is just one of the unique, less known uses of plants.

However, it should not be a surprise to find flowers that can be eaten or ingested in some manner.

After all, they are modified shoots and there are plenty of edible stems and leaves.

A list of selected crop plants each capable of producing flowers that are edible is provided below.

For more information, including the usable parts and how they are used, you may start with the references listed hereunder.

The scientific names will be useful also in finding details about any plant.

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Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794).

Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was a French chemist and tax farmer (collector of tax for the king) and is now considered the father of modern chemistry.

He investigated the composition of air and water.

He showed that fixed air (later to be identified as carbon dioxide) was made up of carbon and oxygen (Govindjee and Krogmann 2004).

Deliberately, he pursued experiments to disprove the Phlogiston Theory, and well he did, replacing it with his Oxygen Theory which accounts for the “dephlogisticated air” that is given off by plants in the process of photosynthesis.

In 1776 he demonstrated that common air was not a simple substance and that only one-fourth of the entirety of common air consisted of respirable air (Egerton 2008).

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Just exactly how to prune is difficult to teach or execute.

Pruning is the removal of unwanted parts of a plant in order to attain a specific purpose or purposes.

But the choice of the parts to be removed is hampered by many factors.

There are simply no standards. It is because each plant has distinct architecture and growth habits and plant responses to pruning are not the same.

The difficulty is further compounded considering that pruners, as humans, deviate in their perception of right and wrong, especially in the selection of branches to be removed or retained.

The specific purpose of pruning will also affect decision-making on how to prune any tree specifically the choice of main branches or any part thereof to be removed and the severity of pruning.

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