The Conversation: Is this the protein plant of the future? New study finds ‘sweetness gene’ that makes lupins tastier If you walk into a bar in Italy, you might be served a dish of salty, nutritious snacks: lupin beans, a legume that has been eaten around the Mediterranean and in parts of the Middle East and Africa ... Is this the protein plant of the future?
New study finds ‘sweetness gene’ that makes lupins tastier Interior Alaskan forests have only six native tree species: white spruce, black spruce, quaking aspen, balsam poplar, larch (tamarack) and paper birch. Northern Canadian forests have all of those, plus jack pine, balsam fir and lodgepole pine. Since northern Canada and interior Alaska share the same grueling climate and extremes of daylength, why are the Canadian tree species absent from ... A tree's age can be easily determined by counting its growth rings, as any Boy or Girl Scout knows.
tree lupin, Annually, the tree adds new layers of wood which thicken during the growing season and thin during the winter. These annual growth rings are easily discernible (and countable) in cross-sections of the tree's trunk. In good growing years, when sunlight and rainfall are plentiful, the growth rings ... I eventually found a tree with a spiral lightning mark and it followed the spiral grain exactly. One tree, of course, proves nothing.
tree lupin, "But why should the tree spiral? More speculation here: Foliage tends to be thicker on the south side of the tree because of better sunlight. The most plentiful moose food in the state — and probably Alaska’s most numerous tree — is the feltleaf willow, which was once called the Alaska willow. As its name implies, the feltleaf sprouts canoe-shaped green leaves that feel fuzzy on the underside. The Klukwan giant holds the national record for black cottonwood diameter. Its nearest rival, a tree near Salem, Oregon, does hold the national height record.
The Klukwan giant belies the belief that trees tend to get smaller the farther north one goes. Both balsam poplar and cottonwood have value for fuel wood, pulp and lumber.
