The only place in the world where crops grow themselves

reply to post by diqiushiwojia


Yay for GMO Rapeseed! Aka Canola Oil.

reply to post by diqiushiwojia


What do i think? Im thinking they should do some tests with other plants. Why not see if it increases thc in cannabis? Would that soil provide something special for kale? Cilantro? interesting find! Im wondering if they could use that plot to grow beneficial medicinal herbs! and to possibly cultivate new species that would be created there!

Glad to see everyone's interest in this. There seems to be two main concerns from ATSers, the sources and why it's special.

For the rapeseed, my main sources are:
69csx.blog.163.com... (a blog, but another site has one of the paragraphs from this source and cites a book for it, so it can be trusted)
A book titled 'The Mysteries of Life' (It's in Chinese, but Taiwanese books regularly have English titles for some reason)

For the rice,
69csx.blog.163.com... (again)
www.chinawater.net.cn...

Many ATSers have mentioned that crops in nature are supposed to regrow as plants can plant seeds in the soil to spring up again. Now, I know nothing about agriculture outside the geography textbook, but I'll try to explain anyway.

I think the most amazing thing about the rapeseed field is sustainability without feedback.

Let's look at the nutrient cycle of a natural ecosystem first. In a natural ecosystem, nutrients cycle through the different trophic levels, the layer of litter, and the soil, then back to the plants through uptake. Sure, there are inputs (nitrogen fixation, nutrients from weathered rock...) and losses (through surface runoff, through leaching...), but those are quite limited in amount. When plants litter wither and defoliate, animals excrete, die, etc., they enter the litter and decomposers such as saprotrophs will decompose them into inorganic nutrients. The nutrients will then be available for plants to reuse.

Now, let's turn this into an agroecosystem. In most agroecosystems (save for large-scale plantations), the supply of nutrients from plants to the litter almost disappears completely. The nutrient cycle almost goes from cyclic to unidirectional - input fertilisers, plant uptake, remove plants (output). In a normal situation, if there are no inputs (in this case, no fertilisers) and only outputs, the soil fertility will decrease continuously until the land is no longer arable. The amazing thing is that the rapeseed field has not seen any decrease in soil fertility despite the lack of input (as I said earlier, there are inputs like nutrients dissolved in rainfall and input from the weathering of parent rocks, but those are small in amount).

Also, the great flood, which would probably have washed away most of the seeds and nutrients in the topsoil, did not affect the growth of the rapeseed.

Originally posted by spacedoubt
Wow that is interesting.
For those that may not know. Rapeseed oil does have much more user friendly name. Canola oil.
it's one of the healthier vegetable oils.
I my be wrong, but I think Diesel engines are happy to ingest this oil as well.

Having not done much other research on this, I wonder is regular rapeseed farmers have a high percentage of "volunteer" crop from year to year.

I hate to throw cold water on you, but you're wrong on both counts. Canola is not strictly rapeseed, but a Canadian Corporation-owned (get it? Can-Ola?) GM version; Low Erucic Acid Rape (or LEAR for short). It is poisonous, just as rapeseed is. Though, because of its abundance, the Chinese have been eating it for a long time, and have developed a resistance to the poison. It should only be used as a fuel and lubricant, but thanks to our diligent overseers at the FDA, it was placed on the "Generally Recognized As Safe" list. I should add that milk, according to the FDA, is deadly poison unless you kill all the enzymes therein and alter the proteins via pasteurization. Then preferably fracture the fats via homogenization, such that your body cannot properly digest them.

reply to post by seamus


you sure the poison isin't a genome from a virus on the plant? and said Chinese people over time developed a protein necessary to eat such *poison* that would be evolution now wouldn't it? Im thinking that maybe this plant has a special viral infection that's bonded with it to give it those proteins it needs to effect its regrowth. I would love to get my hands on some with some equipment and see if i could isolate the protein doing it. Then putting it into cannabis by giving the strain to a researcher to put on thousands of plants to cultivate a viral infection till one of them gets infected. Then plot more till they get one that mutates and takes the codes it needs instead of dieing. Could make it a wild plant everywhere. Eventually you could move onto more complex things such as fruits and trees. The possibilities of isolating that genome are endless. Tho it would effect us the same way, it would be beneficial to evolve in such ways to bond with something with so much potentcial. It should be studied further but i doubt im the only one to have this idea.

reply to post by CrypticSouthpaw

I think we have proven that messing with nature has been dangerous...GMO.

reply to post by SunnyDee


then you do not understand nature my friend. Viruses are what make us evolve. And the governments of this world are practicing such methods of science dictatorship. We have to come to terms with what we are what whats going on. This stuff can be beneficial. Given time. It can also be used for evil as well. I want to use this to make endless crops of fruits and forests that never deforest. All would have to be in controlled enviroments. Such pathogens tend to only bond to one species at a time and kill everyone else around it. This has been the problem with GMO crops that people have been trying to get around. But governments are doing nothing and not really informing people whats going on. They are just trying to perfect the genes anyways and disinform the masses because in their eyes its beneficial. I also find that they are creating not so nice ones as well. They are trying to create humans as a viral hive mind species. I don't want that. Tho i want this technology to be utilized to vastly evolve our species and that of other plants. This is what evolution is all about. Scary and horrible. Im still coping with figuring it all out. But i don't agree with all the disinformation. And the constraints they put on people. But i guess they can't just tell the people they are genetically modifying them now can they?