Hello again everyone! In the last blog, I discussed the various types of resources, our consumption of those resources, and the impact of the extraction of those resources. This time I will discuss plant growth, the different growing methods, and conventional farming.
As discussed in the last blog, biorenewable resources are resources deriving from a living or recently living thing. For example, plants. But before discussing what plants could be used for, we need to acknowledge the process of how these plants become biomass, which is another word for a biorenewable resource. This process is known as photosynthesis and is what makes biorenewable resources renewable. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants use the sun’s energy to turn carbon dioxide and water into biomass. This prosses is particularly special because, through the process of photosynthesis, biomass can be made with very little energy input. The process of photosynthesis also benefits us by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So photosynthesis is the process of what makes the plant renewable but how does the plant grow? For a plant to grow all of its cells and structures, it needs glucose, which is made during photosynthesis. Glucose molecules are like building blocks and could be moved around to make bigger molecules and then those molecules could be arranged to make cells. From those cells, bigger structures could be made and then all of those structures could be put together to make a plat. But why does this growth pattern matter? These growth patterns determine what we could make of a plat. For example, furniture from the tree could be made from a tree structure named xylem but not from the bark. This whole process of how a plant grows is what classifies a plant as a biorenewable resource.
Now that we know how a plant grows, we could move on to how do people produce them. For this part, I will be discussing some types of production of trees. Our woody biorenwable resources come from three main types of foresty, which are natural forests, plantation forests, and short-rotation coppicing. The first is the natural forest system. This system focuses on natural regeneration and is harvested between 40-80 years. 90% of forests in the US are natural forests (Statistic from Woody Biomass Production Video). Next are plantation forests, which are planted and managed to maximize the production of wood. Here, harvesting occurs after about 25-40 years (Statistic from Woody Biomass Production Video). Though plantation forests only make up 3% of forests worldwide, 27% of the total wood harvested in the world come from these forests, which shows how significant they are (Shmulsky & Jones, 2011). Lastly, comes short-rotation cropping, which is where trees are selectively bred to maximize the growth rate and be able to harvest in a short period of time.
Now that we know a little bit about some types of growing methods, we could finish off this blog discussing conventional agriculture. Conventional agriculture is industrial farming that uses things like pesticides and GMOs. This type of farming could be done to try to increase the gains and lower the cost of farming. Though this may seem good, conventional farming negatively impacts the environment by doing things like taking away organic material and natural organisms through pesticide use. Another thing to note is the high use of fossil fuels for the production of fertilizers, running tractors, and irrigation. Though these impacts might seem bad, we can’t just stop agriculture because we need to constantly provide food, clothes, and energy to all the people on earth and dealing with the increasing population. So now through my course and through this blog, we both know a little more about our biorenewable resources.
Works Cited:
- Woody Biomass Production Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=229&v=7LiviVO2NSA
- Forest Products and Wood Science An Introduction, Sixth Edition by Rubin Shmulsky & P. David Jones
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