• The Cuuuuube
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      2811 months ago

      Hemp / marijuana is arguably the most successful plant at this. It enjoys a high degree of biodiversity where as most plants we cultivate suffer from monoculture problems. Why is hemp / marijuana so successful? Probably because of its multiple uses. It makes strong fibers, you can make milk from it, you can make all sorts of consumer products like lip balm and hair conditioner, and you can get fucking ripped bro

      • @Silentrizz@lemmy.world
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        1011 months ago

        See also Brassica Oleracea aka wild cabbage which we’ve cultivated into cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, collard greens, savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, gai lan… etc

          • Woland
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            211 months ago

            I love the texture of cooked romanesco, it’s as if potatoes and broccoli got together and decided to have a fractal baby

            • @derpgon@programming.dev
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              211 months ago

              Fun fact, apparently nature can only do fractals 4 levels deep. This works for romanesco, fern, and tons of others. I am yet to find an outlier.

      • @Tak@lemmy.ml
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        711 months ago

        From what I can find there are 700 strains of cannabis

        There’s 4000 varieties of potato

        • The Cuuuuube
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          111 months ago

          Where did you find that about hemp? I can only find info about recreational marijuana and can’t find anything about agricultural or industrial hemp. And the recreational marijuana numbers I could find are all just like “top 30 strains to try today”

          • @MedicareForSome@lemmy.ml
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            411 months ago

            Leafly lists 6,822 cannabis strains. Though ‘strains’ or more aptly cultivars are often not reflective of the actual underlying chemical nature of the plant [source]. They are ultimately not very meaningful in general.

            Based on this database, Europe has 104 varieties of hemp registered.

            Canada has 87 but there is probably overlap.

            Though potatoes and cannabis aren’t really a fair comparison for many reasons. There are a lot of different species of potatoes with major chromosomal differences but cannabis only has 3 species.

            • @Tak@lemmy.ml
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              211 months ago

              It’s also not really fair because potatos are one of the easiest plants to monocrop with how you can propagate them without seeds.

              • The Cuuuuube
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                211 months ago

                Yeah its a major problem in particular with the Idaho Gold being far and a way the most commonly grown potato to meet McDonald’s demand for long fries that stick up out of the little fry nest

      • @Kempeth@feddit.de
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        1711 months ago

        The difference in survival probably stems from a single hyphen.

        Mint grows like a fucking weed. Silphium grew like a fucking-weed.

        • @Zink@lemmy.world
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          811 months ago

          You aren’t kidding. I got four tiny spearmint plants this spring. They are growing kind of hydroponically because I have a pond.

          In less than three months, those plants have exploded into huge nice-smelling bushes that are more than two feet in each dimension. They are planted in a line so there’s this walk of mint that’s almost 12 feet long.

          But that’s not enough. The plants send out branches along the ground like freaking tentacles. They will spill out of a planter box, for instance.

          The fast growth is why I chose this plant, but damn!

          • @Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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            411 months ago

            You’re going to battling mint for decades to come.

            My mom made that same mistake more than 20 years ago. The original plants are long gone but I am still dealing with mint in my garden and just everywhere. It takes over the lawn.

            • Woland
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              211 months ago

              The smell when you run the lawnmower, though… Heaven

      • @paysrenttobirds@sh.itjust.works
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        311 months ago

        Similar is happening to Western Yews for cancer meds, I think. Whether it survives depends on how easy it is to tame if only intensive agriculture will supply the demand. And then there’s the question of whether it’s still the same thing – looking at you, broiler chicken.

  • @emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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    5611 months ago

    Humans aren’t the only ones to do this. Many animals eat plants that don’t kill them but are deadly to their predators / parasites.

      • @Lexam@lemmy.ca
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        5211 months ago

        What’s truly amazing is how the frogs learned to make and use darts.

      • @Silentrizz@lemmy.world
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        2211 months ago

        Lol what is this article?

        First

        Poison dart frogs are not poisonous in captivity because they do not have access to the specific insects that they would eat in the wild which contain the toxins that make them poisonous.

        Also

        It is a common misconception that dart frogs lose their poison in captivity. In reality, they only lose their toxicity when they are exposed to certain chemicals found in captivity, such as cleaners and pesticides

        Later

        They acquire these toxins as they eat certain insects in their environment that contain them. So if a poison dart frog is ever relocated to an area where these insects don’t exist, it will lose its toxicity over time.

        Finally… it’s fine if you’re not worries about getting poisoned

        Some people handle their poison dart frogs with gloves, but this isn’t necessary unless you have an open wound on your hand or you’re particularly worried about getting poisoned.

        • @OtakuAltair@lemm.ee
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          1311 months ago

          I’m seeing alot of these extremely low effort articles recently that are, for some reason, ranked very highly by google. AI spam probably?

          • @hinterlufer@lemmy.world
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            1111 months ago

            It’s almost certainly machine generated text. And I’m terrified of a future where I need to first sort out 10 poorly written AI articles until I find something that’s actually written by a human and coherent.

            • @Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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              711 months ago

              That’s … now. That’s literally already the case. I rarely find good a good result on the first page anymore.

        • @Agent641@lemmy.world
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          1011 months ago

          Poison dart frogs aren’t actuallu poisonous, unless they are, in which case, they are poisonous

          • Lev_Astov
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            411 months ago

            Almost? I’ve seen two other articles this week that were self-contradictory mere sentences apart. I’m pretty sure this is an AI plague.

        • @Pickle_Jr@lemmy.world
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          111 months ago

          Yeah I’m going to be honest. When I went to link an article, I just did a Google search and looked for the first article that wasn’t completely trashed with ads. Just briefly skimmed the article, not enough to tear it apart obviously.

    • @samus12345@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      “Why would you eat me when I make you shit fire??”

      Humans: Haha painfully burning mouth go brrrrr

        • @kbotc@lemmy.world
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          1511 months ago

          Not a chance. Peppers and the vast majority of humans still in existence did not interact for most of human evolution. Peppers are a new world plant and the humans who had the most experience and could have evolved along side them lost 90% of their genetic diversity when the Colombian exchange brought them a massive multi-disease plague. The return where peppers came to the rest of the world was in the 16th century. Not really enough time for evolution to guide people towards eating the plant. It’s a very short time on a genetic scale.

          • @wedeworps@sh.itjust.works
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            211 months ago

            That theory may not hold for pepper alone, but capsaicin is found in spicy foods in general and may have health benefits, such as anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties so consuming spicy foods may have provided an advantage in promoting overall health