The power of three
Imagine a life without the warmth of the sun. Imagine a life without the refreshment water provides. Imagine a life without the nourishment that comes from food. Most will agree that such a life would be a hard one to live. Worse, it’s no life at all; bland and depressing. Why then do we imagine life for any living thing without these elements. Find out more at playigbo.com.
Humans need sunlight, water and food to survive. Plants do too. Botanists and biologists have fancy names to refer to these needs and how plants respond to them. In high school, most people get to hear the words phototropism, geotropism, and nutrient cycles for the first time. In primary school or grade 1, most people would also remember the assignment to make a potted plant and place it near a window. Phototropism refers to the response of plants to sunlight. As some might also recall, chlorophyll cells in plants absorb light energy to make food using carbon dioxide and water, producing oxygen as a by product. Whoops! I avoided the technical jargon, photosynthesis and global warming. Geotropism is the response of the roots of plants to gravity, which makes them grow downwards as they also move closer to water table or sources of water. Plant roots also absorb nutrients from the soil, plant vessels called xylem transport water and nutrients upwards from plant roots.
In high school, the response of plants to sunlight was the most fascinating for me, because I wasn’t that tall. It was cool watching the stem of a plant twist and turn as it made its way towards the direction of sunlight. I hoped that by spending more time in the sun I would grow taller. Probably the vitamin D I get from the sun will make me grow taller as I slept at night (I knew growth happens when we sleep), or my bones will become stronger and stretch, or perhaps through some other mechanism. I am not sure if all that time in the sun helped my height in any significant way (I remained with my Serena physique which earned me the name Nanjala when I recently visited Kenya). I gave up these ideas and left the sun for the plants when later on I learnt that ultraviolet rays from the sun could cause cancer.
If we are unable to make it easier for trees and all plant life to access these triple resources they need for growth and survival, we should not make it harder. The services they provide make life easy for us. Why then should trees and plant life not exist because of the services we choose not to provide and the things we destroy because of our lack of depth and reflection as humans. There’s a mutual benefit if we make life easier for plants and trees. What plants and trees do, they do for us. Earn points by bringing these three elements together for trees, and all plant life. Learn more at playigbo.com