Botanicky

Organic Fertilizer and Water Hyacinth Organic fertilizers became a hot topic in Sri Lanka just after the Sri Lankan government put a ban on the importation of chemical fertilizers to the country. With this situation, the farmers were forced to find ways to produce organic fertilizers for their cultivation.  That is when water hyacinth captured the attention of many people in Sri Lanka. Until then it was used to be just an aquatic invasive plant for a majority of Sri Lankans. However, the people who found out that there is a great value of water hyacinth for the production of organic fertilizers are now wade deep into the water tanks and uproot water hyacinths for the production of organic fertilizers.  What exactly are water hyacinth?  Water hyacinth or Eichhornia crassipes  belongs to the family Pontederiaceae is a free floating perennial aquatic plant with broad, thick, glossy, and ovate leaves. They reproduce primarily by runners or stolons and can produce thousan...

How amazing Lace plants are? What do you know about Lace plants? Well. I got to know about this plant quite recently. But believe me, this is one of the most beautiful freshwater aquatic plant that I have ever seen and  a very popular plant in aquariums.  It belongs to family Aponogetonaceae and scientifically known as Aponogeton madagascariensis . The native country  is Madagascar. "Holy grail", "Madagascar laceleaf, lattice leaf, or lace plant are the most common names of this plant. They are comprised of net like leaves and no tissues between. It looks more like a skeleton network of veins.  Lace plants have quite beautiful features. One of them is that they go through a resting period in order to continue its life cycle for several years. In warm summers, lace feels the worst. So what they do is they drop most of their leaves. In the past, people thought, "Oh, this plant is going to die". But that is not the actual case. Simply the natural order that is spe...

Botany of Linen It is not certain that the people who pioneered in making clothes, but, the origin of clothes dates back to somewhere between 100,000 - 500,000 years. That is when people started wearing clothes. First, the clothes were made up of natural elements such as animal fur, leaves, grass, bones, shells and etc.  However, with the time being, people started using flax plants to make clothes. Flax is considered the oldest fiber that is known to have been used by people.  Flax ( Linum usitatissimum ) is a flowering plant that belongs to the family Linaceae. Flax is a genus of approximately 200 species. They are native to subtropical and temperate countries in the world. It is an annual plant that grows up about 3 - 4 ft tall, with bluish-green leaves and pale blue flowers and sometimes white, yellow, and red. The fruits are small dry capsules made up of five lobes. The stalks are slender and the branches are concentrated at the top. This plant is adapted to a variety of ...

Plant Hormone - Gibberellin Gibberellin involves in stem elongation and seed germination. Gibberellin can alter the rheological properties of the cell wall of plants and it causes gibberellin to stimulate cell elongation. As a result, the water potential of cells is lowered allowing water uptake and an increase in cell volume.  Gibberellin stimulates seed germination by breaking the seed dormancy. When gibberellic acid (GA) is produced, they migrated to the aleuron layer where hydraulic enzyme production is stimulated. These enzymes are released into the starchy endosperm and digest starch and protein in the inner endosperm wall. Thus this converts insoluble, complex food into soluble, simple food. Ultimately, they are diluted and passed towards growing epicotyl, hypocotyl, radicle, and plumule through the cotyledon.

Plant Hormone - Auxin Auxin involves in tropism, apical dominance, and leaf abscission. In phototropism, auxin in the shoot tips moves away from sunlight. This is triggered by the light receptors in plants causing auxins to redistribute to the dark side of the plant. As a result, the shoot tip of the plant which receives direct sunlight has the least amount of auxin and the opposite part contains the highest amount of auxin. This high concentration of auxin promotes more cell division and elongation, thus the shoot tip with high auxin concentration bends towards light. This is known as positive phototropism. The same action occurs in geotropism as in phototropism. Auxin is accumulated in the lower side of the root in response to the gravitational force. In roots, a high concentration of auxin inhibits cell division and elongation and as a result, the lower side of the roots becomes shorter and grows downwards. This is known as negative phototropism.  Auxins are produced in the stem...

  What is a plant structure? The plant consists of two main structural systems. 1. Root system and 2. Shoot system.  The root system consists of generally two systems known as the taproot system and the fibrous root system. It provides water and dissolved minerals to the plant body.  The shoot system consisted of stems, leaves, and reproductive structures. Generally, they grow above the ground and helps in absorbing light for photosynthesis.

Selected traditional rice varieties The traditional rice varieties have different characteristic features. Here are some of the main 5 traditional rice varieties in Sri Lanka. Pachchaperumal Pachchaperumal is a red rice variety and the grain is medium in size which is insensitive to photoperiod and 3 – 3.5 months maturity. The cultivated extent of Pachchaperumal in the year 2013 is around 607 ha. This is mainly cultivated in the Yala season and it produces an average grain yield of 30 -35 bushels per acre. Suduru samba Suduru samba is a white rice variety and the grains are very small and palatable. It is insensitive to photoperiod and has 3 – 3.5 months maturity. This variety is considered to have a comparative resistant against thrips and brown planthoppers. The harvesting period of Suduru samba varies depending on the season and the Yala season takes more time than the Maha season for harvesting. The height of the plant is around 180 cm and most of the time this plant lodges before ...

Morphological structure of rice The Rice plant consists of two main organs. They are vegetative organs and reproductive organs. The vegetative organs include roots, stems, leaves, sheaths, auricles, and ligules. The reproductive organs are the panicles, flowers, and grains.  Vegetative structures Roots - 95% of the roots can be found in the top 0.2m of the soil (Wopereis et al, 2009) and the roots are always under flooded conditions. Roots help in anchoring rice plants to the soil and for the absorption of nutrients from the soil. Stems – stem is composed of nodes and internodes. Internodes are hollow structures with smooth surfaces. The internodes located at the lower part of the stem are shorter than the internodes at the top leading to more resistance to lodging. Leaves – The leaves are located alternatively on the stems and always one leaf for one node. They capture solar radiation and contribute to photosynthesis. The solar radiation absorption of different rice varieties diff...