The World's Longest-Running Experiment is Buried in a Secret Spot in Michigan

[Agnosticsherbet]

The World's Longest-Running Experiment is Buried in a Secret Spot in Michigan

In the fall of 1879, Dr. William James Beal walked to a secret spot on Michigan State University’s campus and planted a strange crop: 20 narrow-necked glass bottles, each filled with a mixture of moist sand and seeds. Each vessel was “left uncorked and placed with the mouth slanting downward so that water could not accumulate about the seeds,” Beal wrote. “These bottles were buried on a sandy knoll in a row running east and west.”

In the spring of 2000, under cover of night, current WJ Beal Botanical Garden curator Dr. Frank Telewski and his colleague Dr. Jan Zeevaart crept out to the same secret knoll and dug up the sixth-to-last seed bottle—completing the latest act in what has become the world’s longest continually monitored scientific study.

When he buried those bottles 137 years ago, Dr. Beal didn’t aim to start the As the World Turns of garden experiments. As a botanist at an agricultural school, he was just trying to find a rigorous answer to a question that has dogged farmers for millennia: how many times do you have to pull up weeds before they stop growing back? “Back then, [farmers] didn’t have herbicides,” and weeding was the most tedious part of the job, explains Telewski. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘that’s a long row to hoe?’ That’s where that came from.”

[JimDandy]

1. That weed called Moth Mullein

actually looks like something I'd like in my garden.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. It is a pretty weed.

[Warpy]

3. Gardeners didn't bother pulling the weeds until about 200 years ago

They used the flowering weeds for decoration, others for flavorings, and still others for folk medicines. Everything that sprouted in the garden had a use.

Then some genius realized that the stuff they'd actually planted had a higher yield without weeds competing for sunlight and nutrients and gardening as hard work was born.

I actually did very little weeding, I'd discovered mulch. Anything that grew through the mulch deserved to live.

[JimDandy]

4. I love all the things I learn on DU.

I appreciate this kind of post even more in the current contentious political climate. Thanks for that!

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Mullein is easily grown, has pretty flowers, and is useful for lung congestion.

Dried leaves do a good job of opening lung airway. Also can be used in a tea or even dried and smoked.
Night moths like the flowers.

[BobTheSubgenius]

5. Mullein may be the seed with the longest liability, but..

...I'm here to tell you that the mallow - around here, they are known as Lavatera - are as prolific and fast growing as anything. Annuals propagate like crazy, and, if you cut an established perennial variety back to stumps, it will be a bush with a 6' diameter by the end of the season.

[passiveporcupine]

6. Very cool study

Forget about the seeds, I want those old bottles!