[TransformerRobot]

What would happen if trees were injected with steroids? Or are steroids only effective on human beings?

This post has been edited by TransformerRobot: 18 December 2011 - 03:05 AM

[ewmon]

Quote

Auxins are a class of plant hormones (or plant growth substances) with some morphogen-like characteristics. Auxins have a cardinal role in coordination of many growth and behavioral processes in the plant's life cycle and are essential for plant body development.

source

[TransformerRobot]

So is there a way to accelerate auxins to speed up tree growth?

[hypervalent_iodine]

The role of steroids is many and varied and don't necessarily equate to increasing bulk. Some have hormonal roles, other have more strucutral roles, such as cholesterol. I do not know if there is a plant sterol specifically implicated in promoting growth either upwards or outwards (these are two different processes in plants, IIRC), but if so then I would imagine that feeding plants suppliments of this steroid would not necessarily work since it would a.) need to be able to be easily absorbed by the plant with minimal chemical decomposition and b.) be only one part of what I can only assume is a complex network of biochemical pathways and therefore would likely require more than simply overloading the organism with one single compound. I'm not a biologist, however, so perhaps my assumptions are false.

[TransformerRobot]

I was hoping that something could be done with auxins to make the tree grow in shorter periods of time. That way we'd be able to sustain both forests, and the logging industry.

[hypervalent_iodine]

Even assuming that it would work, you would run into a number of ethical issues that would most likely see it as a rather unfeasible exercise. And that's not to mention the extremely likely case of additonal environmental effects.

[John Cuthber]

The effect of excess auxins (strictly speaking synthetic auxin mimics) is well documented and used in products like this
http://en.wikipedia....ki/Agent_Orange

Probably not quite the effect you want.

In essence the trees can't grow faster than they can get the energy and CO2 to grow with.

[Greg Boyles]

John Cuthber, on 18 December 2011 - 10:25 AM, said:

The effect of excess auxins (strictly speaking synthetic auxin mimics) is well documented and used in products like this
http://en.wikipedia....ki/Agent_Orange

Probably not quite the effect you want.

In essence the trees can't grow faster than they can get the energy and CO2 to grow with.

It would be vastly more cost effective to grow them in the tropics with warmth and high rainfall and provide them with extra fertiliser.

Or use a naturally fast growing species such as bamboo.

Any way use if steroids is generally associated with detrimental health effects, e.g. increased risk of heart failure etc.

Increased use of auxins would likely have similar detrimental effects to the health and vitality of the tree.

[ewmon]

TransformerRobot, on 18 December 2011 - 03:36 AM, said:

So is there a way to accelerate auxins to speed up tree growth?

Slightly on the humorous side, you could literally pee on them.

Quote

Fitting (1910) isolated an extract from pollens which caused the growth of ovary and he was the first to use the name "hormone" in botany. ... Laibach (1933) then found that the ether extract not only from pollen but also from human urine and animal tissues promoted the growth of ovary and coleophiles. This must have been the strong clue why Kögl extracted auxin from human urine. The "pollen hormone" then turned out to be auxin.

[TransformerRobot]

Greg Boyles, on 18 December 2011 - 01:22 PM, said:

It would be vastly more cost effective to grow them in the tropics with warmth and high rainfall and provide them with extra fertiliser.

Or use a naturally fast growing species such as bamboo.

Any way use if steroids is generally associated with detrimental health effects, e.g. increased risk of heart failure etc.

Increased use of auxins would likely have similar detrimental effects to the health and vitality of the tree.

I was told about bamboos growth rate yesterday by my Aunt. ^^ But does bamboo make good firewood? People will still need ways to heat their homes.

[Greg Boyles]

TransformerRobot, on 18 December 2011 - 03:26 PM, said:

I was told about bamboos growth rate yesterday by my Aunt. ^^ But does bamboo make good firewood? People will still need ways to heat their homes.

I don't see why bamboo would not burn well if it was dried. But it would also burn a lot more quickly than solid heartwood.

Anyway my position is always that if demand exceeds supply to the point where you need to consider such questionable and desperate strategies then there are simply to many people and to much demand and that it would far more cost effective to reduce the population.

Even successfully increasing the supply of wood or food or what ever is merely delaying the inevitable crunch.

[TransformerRobot]

Yes, but we're talking about plants and trees, not birth control.

[Ringer]

Auxin in adult plants will cause growth in the stems and will inhibit growth in the roots. It doesn't cause cell division so much as cause the cells to get larger. For increase in the cell division cytokinins are your best bet. But like any hormone too much will cause it to die or just stunt it's growth. I'm sure a google search will give you some answers on the best amount.

[HuMoDz]

Well, i think it is possible for human hormones to affect plants. I've read about a man poisoned by a certain plant hormone, i'll see if iI can find the book i read that.

This post has been edited by HuMoDz: 28 December 2011 - 01:57 AM