Funny thing about the Chinese

[BrilloPad]

An article in last week's New Scientist claimed that plants can detect noises.

So they may be stimulated by music or soothing talk, and Prince Charles was right all along

Well all atw's plants have died so it must be true.

[OwlHoot]

.. When you grow a seedling in the greenhouse, then re-pot it and put it outside, it will get a shock, because of the lower temperature. And at night, when it gets really cool, the seedling will die.
So you take the seedlings and 'harden' them, by leaving them outside, for longer and longer periods, until they are so tough, you can leave them out overnight. ...

An article in last week's New Scientist claimed that plants can detect noises.

So they may be stimulated by music or soothing talk, and Prince Charles was right all along

[OwlHoot]

Another funny thng about the Chinese (according to a policeman I know) is that when they handle things they leave very little DNA evidence.

They tend to avoid milk and dairy products, so maybe their sweat is more watery than westerners'

[xoggoth]

Another funny thng about the Chinese (according to a policeman I know) is that when they handle things they leave very little DNA evidence.

[EternalOptimist]

When I were a lad, my dad had a big allotment.
He was a flipping expert grower of veggies, cane fruit etc. And he took great pleasure in training me up to be the same. He was the sort of bloke who didnt just give things lables, he explained the underlying reasons and principles.

One of the principles he taught me was 'hardening off'.

When you grow a seedling in the greenhouse, then re-pot it and put it outside, it will get a shock, because of the lower temperature. And at night, when it gets really cool, the seedling will die.
So you take the seedlings and 'harden' them, by leaving them outside, for longer and longer periods, until they are so tough, you can leave them out overnight.

It's common sense. It's logical. It fits in with what we know about ourselves - we can acclimatize to new situations over time, we can get a tan, for example, that protects us from burning.

Funny thing about the Chinese though. They did not agree.

When my dad was long gone, China started to open up a bit and some ideas started to get swapped, and one of them was to do with horticulture.

It's not the cold that kills the seedlings, it's movement. The breeze bends the stems, and they are not flexible so the capilleries snap.

The Chinese get round this, not by 'hardening off' but by running threads of silk on a stick over all the seedlings to simulate a light breeze. And they are right. A bit of that and the seedlings can be put out on a very cold night and survive.


whats always struck me about my previous misconception is that a set of basic facts can lead to such an obvious conclusion, but one thats completely wrong.