Practical Biology: science for everyone

The green stem of the legume palo verde tree in the Sonoran Desert. Determining how to fertilize a plant can be quite the difficulty.  Y...

Tassel-ear that another garden produced. Back in July we planted several blocks of corn in our college garden.  July is the normal ti...

There is an increasing amount of hype about genetically modified organisms. And for good reason, without us really knowing it, genetical...

This is a post from two years ago but I thought it worthy of reposting.  Mistletoe has such a fascinating background and considering the tim...

A dry wash the morning after a flash flood came though. The mid-December rain is the most reliable rainfall we receive here in the Sonor...

A Sonoran Desert riparian area in fall along Cottonwood Creek. The desert is most definitely not known for spectacular fall colors.  Fal...

California barrel cactus, Ferocactus cylindraceus . Barrel cacti are kind of as their names imply, barrels full of water.  The problem i...

Compass Barrel cactus The barrel cactus is one of the most common cacti in the Southwest.  There are four different species common to th...

The columnar saguaro cactus.  Note the huge column like shape and ribs lined with spines traversing from the bottom to top. Cacti are on...

The chili pepper was first cultivated and bred for its spiciness in Central America, hundreds of years before any part of the rest of the...

The Creosote Bush (Larrea Tridentata) is a relentless desert plant growing in the deserts in both North and South America.  In North America...

The high humidity and rain from monsoon season seems to be gone from the Sonoran Desert this year.  There is always a chance that it can com...

Garlic is one of the worlds oldest cultivated crops.  6,000 years ago it was originally cultivated in central Asia.  From there it spread...

About two months ago I posted on how a 4th of July storm broke a severe drought we had been experiencing throughout all of 2012 ( Monsoon...

Healthy sugar maple forest. It is very likely that prior to European settlement that deciduous forests of eastern North America were act...

If the Sugar Maple tree is famous for anything, it is famous for maple syrup.  Early each spring as the snow melts, maple syrup farms spr...

When it comes to soil, Sugar Maples are pretty picky.  When it comes to sunlight however, maples aren't picky at all.  Other trees, s...

When we think of potatoes we probably think of Ireland, or Germany, or possibly Idaho.  Really though, we should think of ancient Peru an...

A moist maple forest with rich soil. A Sugar Maple seed doesn't get to choose where and what type of soil it gets to land on.  Typic...

I'll be starting a new series on the blog about the life cycle of the maple tree, specifically the sugar maple.  This is sort of a follo...