School talk:Plant sciences

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Getting Aquainted

What is up, SBJohnny? What was your motivation to start this school? What do you hope it will achieve? Take a look at my learning goals for the Medicinal Plant section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.253.11.153 (talk • contribs)

I just love to learn and teach about plants, though I'm more on the practical side than the academic side. So I'm hoping to get some knowledgeable people involved to set up learning projects here, GFDL textbooks on wikibooks, and maybe get involved in organizing the botany-related topics on WP.

The thing I'd really like to get rolling is the Bloom clock project... I'm going to talk to a few professors at local schools to see if it could be incorporated into class projects. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 10:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

My Interests focus on Applied Ecology of plants native to the Midwestern United States. While the Bloom clock is a great idea, I'm more interested in plant emergence, growth, and dormancy for ecohydrological rain garden models. The specificity of plant locations and environment (eg. full sun, SE facing slope, in Sandy Loam, soil moist) can greatly increase data value.

I mention this because of my frustration with ecological accounts of transpiration rates that neglect to comment on the local weather (temperature, wind, humidity, and solar radiation),the depth to water table, surface soil moisture and soil texture. If ones data set is as large and long term as Henry Thoreau's other people are motivated to correlate other evidence to fill in such details. Inter-regional and inter-annual comparisons become valid more quickly with such details.

This is a request not a criticism. If I settle into a long term home, I’d like to contribute to Bloom Clock. Perhaps it can extend to clock other growth events. At this point I could create a regional botany topic, under Botany, then contribute a complete list of Minnesota's vascular plants with links to the USDA Plants database and additional traits from literature. It seems inappropriate for me to be so specific at a global wikiversity.BrianAsh 02:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Potential student

I'm probably too busy to be useful now, but come January, if you're looking for a student, I'm very interested in botany, but have very little biological background at all, and I'd gladly sign up to learn stuff. I'm more interested in the "Plantlore" aspect of things than the chemical aspect of things, FYI. The Jade Knight 07:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I like he folklore stuff too, though I'm actually even more interested in common names and where they come from. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 10:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Pomology

Can I creat here a topic based on pomology/fruit production or it would be better under School of Agriculture?--Juan 13:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Such would definately fit in the school of agriculture, if Wikiversity had one. Since agriculture traditionally focuses on fruit grown for human consumption, a discussion under plant sciences may make sense if human consumption is decidedly not your focus. Even in such case one should link with agriculture when it appears. BrianAsh 01:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Relational Tree of Phytological Interest

Plant sciences

   Botany           --Plants for plants sake
   Plant Taxonomy   (Though Taxa are not limited to plants)
   Etnobotany
   Regional Botany
   Plant Physiology
 Agriculture        --for human consumption (culture is not limited to plants) 
   Aquaculture
   Farming
   Horticulture
     Pomology
     Silviculture
 Natural Resources  -- For Ecosystems managment
   Forestry
   Wilderness Preservation
   Ecology

Also closely related:

 Applied Ecology
   Bioengineering
   Phytoremediation
   Ecohydrology
   Microclimatology
   Biospherics
   Biosystems Engineering

Within the school of plant sciences there are different focusses one can take

 Plants for there own sake          --phytology
 Plants as components of ecosystems --ecohydrology
 Plants for human consumption       --agriculture
 Human use of plants                --ethno botany
 Plants as tools for engineering    --Applied ecology
 

FREELY EDIT THE ABOVE. These organizational ideas. Botany is a subset of Plant Sciences because while auto-ecological studies may qualify as part of the botanical description for a plant, many interactive ecological phenomena do not. BrianAsh 03:05, 8 January 2008 (UTC)