Allelopathy -- learnin' something new

[Cindi]

Ann gave a very great site for any of us that do gardening.  I think it is a good idea to look at this site and understand that this term means.  Allelopathy.  I have been gardening for most of my life, and didn't have a clue about this side of the horticultural field.

http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/envirohort/factsheets2/landsnurs/apr94pr1.html

We are always taught to rotate our crops, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.   Know I know that crop rotation is really an important aspect of healthy gardening.  Really some good reading....go ahead, read it, you know you wanna.

My tomatoes did lousy this year, they started of great and then they became weak and got the late season blight, much earlier than it usually occurs in our moist Pacific Northwest weather.  I do mostly attribute it to some very very unseasonably wet weather this summer.  But I can get the bottom dollar it was because where my Husband constructed my greenhouse and had massive amounts of sunflowers growing the prior year. Maybe.....I have lots of studying to do this winter with regard to growing healthier gardens.  And this site that Ann gave (and her knowledge alone) has taken me into a deeper path of understanding horticulture!!!  Yeah!!!!  Have a wonderful and beautiful day in this great life.  Cindi

[reinbeau]

Cindi, I posted what's below in the original thread, but asked that the discussion be brought here.  This was in reply to DennisB's post:

That really is a great article to read, not just for gardeners. I guess it could also be applied in a very general sense to the "toxins" sent out by some plants to repel animals and other insects. Gardeners have planted these types of plants around the edges of their gardens for a long time to keep certain animals and bugs out. Huum...I wonder if they could be used around the edges of the apiary?

Ok, I really did open up a can of worms, didn't i? 

There's a difference between repelling and allelopathy.  Plants can posess allelopathic qualities, not animals. A monarch butterfly eats milkweed, which is highly toxic, thereby acquiring the toxicity of the plant so no animal want to eat the butterfly - that's not allelopathic behavior.  Planting marigolds around a garden will repel, but not poison, certain insects that might want to do your garden harm.  Black walnut trees exude a toxin from their roots, called jugulone, that has allelopathic qualities and will kill many plants living within its dripline.  Some plants have a tolerance for it, however, and will grow just fine. 

[Cindi]

Ann, opened a can of worms.  Nope!!!!  The search for information and knowledge is a quality that I believe that to be a human being we are privileged to possess.  There is nothing more wonderful on this earth than knowledge gained.  AND...applying it to our lives, in every which way we can.

Your can of worms is a beautiful can.  I love to open these cans and delve deeper and deeper and deeper.

Juglone.  I have heard of this word before, narry have I ever visited the meaning of it.  It is another that I will become familiar with.

Black Walnut tree.  The nut from this tree is used for internal parasite cleansing, I know of that.  But I know little of the juglone that this tree exudes into the soil.  Further knowledge required here on my part, and that is my part to search and understand.

I plant marigolds amongst my carrots.  We have grave issues with the carrot rust fly in our area.  The carrot rust fly can "smell", silly term, isn't that? the carrot greens up to 6 km away.  Planting marigolds that have such a strong pungency to their character disguises the scent of the carrot greens.  It works.  As does predatory nematodes, which now and then I apply to my soils in the gardens in the late spring, when I think of it.  That also works too to rid the soils of many underground maggots (is that the right word for these demons from the other side?  Hee, hee).

Ann, this is going to be a wonderful thread, I will post things that I think about, things that I read about and we will all become better at understanding "stuff".  HOpe I haven't gone off track or topic, this Halloweeny thing really gets to me .  You know me, I can ramble, and totally get off the topic or subject (smile, wink, smile, wink, rolleyes).   Have a wonderful and great day in this life. Cindi

[Cindi]

Ann, I remember something about the word "allele" from years ago, couldn't bring those facts up from the cobwebs in my mind, but I wonder if "allelopathy" comes from the root word "allele".  I copied some text from Wikipidia, see if you think that "allelopathy" may be related.....Have a wonderful and beautiful day, Cindi

An allele (Pronounced: /əˈlil/) is a viable DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) coding that occupies a given locus (position) on a chromosome. Usually alleles are sequences that code for a gene, but sometimes the term is used to refer to a non-gene sequence. An individual's genotype for that gene is the set of alleles it happens to possess. In a diploid organism, one that has two copies of each chromosome, two alleles make up the individual's genotype. The word came from Greek αλληλος = "each other".

An example is the gene for blossom colour in many species of flower — a single gene controls the colour of the petals, but there may be several different versions (or alleles) of the gene. One version might result in red petals, while another might result in white petals. The resulting colour of an individual flower will depend on which two alleles it possesses for the gene and how the two interact.