Kleiman compared mango trees at a local farm in Homestead, Florida. One plot of trees had weeds growing around them. The other plot was maintained and weed-free.
The pollinators preferred the trees with the weeds. In turn, the trees benefitted and produced more mangos. In fact, there were between 100 to 236 mangos on the trees with weeds, compared to between 38 to 48 on the trees without weeds.
Kleiman points out findings apply to mango trees, but also to all of the roughly 80 percent of flowering plants of Earth, including fruit trees and all flowering vegetable plants like tomatoes, beans, eggplants and squash. She also hopes this information can help farmers save time and money, as well as reduce the use of chemical pesticides.
I guess it improves the draw for bees and pollinators because there's more there?
I wonder if this would have a similar effect if instead of simply weeds, it was other plants in general, especially those that flowered?
Regardless, this is pretty damn interesting.
Oh yeah. For example in Japan it is traditional to keep a little patch of forest in lands that were cleared of it. They are called Guardian Forests and serve a bit of a spiritualist purpose, said to be where the local god manifests:
Studies on them have shown that maintaining this patch of local nature increases crop yields in nearby fields. They increase biodiversity, which help pollinators, but also do things you don’t expect immediately - For example, the birds that roost in them help eat rats and mice that may eat crops. By maintaining this natural space, we get helped in many ways, not all obvious
Simply put, biodiversity attracts more biodiversity, and helps nature overall - Including the nature we like to eat. That could be local weeds, or old forests, or whatever else, but it seems as though the central point is that you want some parts of the environment to remain a little natural and wild so they may support that which naturally occurs in the region
Conservatives yap and yap all the time about how kids don’t understand “woke” culture, but today the school age kids at the daycare had a field trip to a park and saw a really weird swing, and one immediately said “that’s for people with disabilities.” And the others were like, “Oh, people with disabilities, yeah that makes sense.” Like, the whole, clunky, politically correct phrase. These are kids who spend most of their time on tablets and don’t like using five words when three words would do, and they said that phrase like it was natural to them.
Sometimes my kids will be making up characters and write pronouns on their pages. One day a girl turned to me and said “This character is they/them.” They don’t think of it as a foreign concept - different genders are just as new a concept to them as all the other stuff they’re learning at this age, and like all that stuff, they regard it not as something to fight about, but just another facet of the world to learn, understand, and incorporate into the stories they create.
The kids handle learning these things just fine. It’s the adults who are moaning pissbabies about it.
Me making a neutral or evil character for fun in rpgs and then struggling to not choose the lawful/neutral/chaotic good options because all the others feel terrible.
WYM THIS WASN’T A JOKE?
source https://www.bosshunting.com.au/sport/superbowl-snipers-nest/
i was looking for a more reliable source and business insider credits 4 chan for the photos?????? since when did business fucking insider use 4chan for a source of anything ???
https://www.businessinsider.com/unseen-super-bowl-security-snipers-nest-xm-210-sniper-rifle-2013-2
I don’t want to take away from how fucking absurd this all is but I really need to ask. Where were the snipers on the roofs on Jan 6th 2021 when the Trump fanatics lead a violent insurrection against the US Capitol???? But they have no problem at all whipping them out against peaceful protesters just in case apparently..
