Plant Wars (Introduction)

”Did you notice that there are fewer plants that naturally grow somewhere but at the same time, people are increasingly concerned about invasive species? It’s like a handful of plant species are trying to win the upper hand or waging a war.”

A half-serious statement said several years ago. Beatrice had laughed at her friend when she had shared her thoughts. But now, looking through her own research, the idea didn’t seem so unbelievable anymore.

Agricultural companies were in dire need of new, more robust crops as not only insects but also invasive and aggressive plants started threatening the harvest.

The common reed spread like a virus. Towering 6 meters high, it stopped sunlight from reaching smaller crops and killed them that way. Getting rid of the reed for good was next to impossible, as it needed only a few leftover root fragments to sprout again.

Kudzu, once brought over from Asia to serve as a food source, now straight out smothered whole fields by growing on top of everything else.

It was a disaster. More and more species of plants started pushing out the crops grown for human consumption. In only a few more years, there would be even bigger world hunger problems than already existed.

There had been attempts to genetically manipulate crops to withstand the attack of other plants, but the whole development and licensing progress took way too long and the general public still feared GMOs.

If Beatrice’s calculations were right, humans and other animals would start dying out because of missing food sources in about 20 years. And it was unlikely that they would find a solution until then, no matter how hard they tried.

Beatrice eyed the bottle of cheap red wine standing on her desk. Words echoed in her head, said to her by an older student when she had just started working on her degree.

”As a Biologist, you have three choices: Become a nerd, depressed or an alcoholic.”

She decided to opt for the third choice.

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Sources:

Phragmites australis
Aggressive and Invasive Reed Raises Concerns
Kudzu

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