Plant Cruelty and the Concept of Reciprocity
I explore the complex world of seeds and germination in my book, The Nature of Plants: An Introduction To How Plants Work, published in both print and audible form by the University of Florida Press. I am now teaching a short course on propagation and it reinforces to me, once again, how little most plant loving people know about seeds and plants in general - so I thought I'd share a bit here. To start, seeds are not "inert". They are quite alive and a lot is going on within them. If I choose to be a vegetarian because I abhor the cruelty that the meat industry presents to animals. I might also say the same about what we do to plants. In reality, why are plants any different from animals? The more we know about them, the more we realize that they face the same challenges that animals do; they just express their feelings in ways that most of us cannot "hear". This lima bean has sat in a jar - either at a store or storage locker likely for months or ye...