[HN Gopher] Edmond Albius's method of pollination is now used by...
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       Edmond Albius's method of pollination is now used by all vanilla
       growers
        
       Author : dnetesn
       Score  : 116 points
       Date   : 2024-06-11 12:20 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nautil.us)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nautil.us)
        
       | encodedrose wrote:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIEVrBLmF70
       | 
       | I was curious to see if there was a video of it being done and
       | this seems to be it. Incredibly delicate is an understatement.
        
         | po wrote:
         | Thank you for looking it up!
         | 
         | Is there a name for the practice of embedding a completely
         | unrelated video into the middle of an article? I find this
         | practice to be so mystifying. Does that work on readers?
        
         | monero-xmr wrote:
         | Those vanilla plants can go fuck themselves. But seriously
        
         | Hitton wrote:
         | Thanks, it beggars belief that they could publish the article
         | without such substantial piece of information.
        
         | swayvil wrote:
         | Maybe it was written by an AI. I'm serious. That a human would
         | leave out that crucial component is indeed boggling.
         | 
         | An AI. Writing and publishing a stream of mid-quality articles.
         | With ads inserted. Profit. Occasionally insane.
        
           | vintagedave wrote:
           | Here's a strange quote from it:
           | 
           | > In the early 1800s, it was introduced to the Netherlands
           | and France, where it ... became a hit with Elizabeth I, among
           | other royals
           | 
           | Elizabeth I was English and died in 1603. Two centuries
           | before the 1800s. I am suspicious of AI for this article too.
        
             | vundercind wrote:
             | Nearly every place that has writers on staff for any
             | purpose is trying to have 1/4 as many (at most) just edit
             | AI output.
             | 
             | The way they tune productivity is deliberately reducing
             | quality of the editing. I'm not kidding.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Url changed from https://worldsensorium.com/the-boy-who-was-king-
       | of-vanilla/, which points to this.
        
       | camkego wrote:
       | I find this fascinating. But I'm really curious about whether
       | this self pollination is causing problems with vanilla's
       | robustness due to a lack of cross pollination.
        
         | dgan wrote:
         | Exactly my thought, if the membrane was evolutionally
         | justified, there has to be downsides
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | It's there to prevent self-polination.
           | 
           | Good for evolution, bad for a crop monoculture.
        
           | throwup238 wrote:
           | The membrane's evolutionary justification might be to force
           | pollinators deeper into the flower, guaranteeing that it
           | touches both the pollen and the stigma. It's a relatively
           | common adaptation in flowers.
        
           | prepend wrote:
           | Evolution's goals are different from vanilla ice cream
           | makers' goals.
        
         | cwmma wrote:
         | the seeds created by the self pollination aren't used to grow
         | more vanilla plants the seed pods it creates are taken and
         | processed.
         | 
         | To create more vanilla plants they take cuttings or similar
         | methods to create a genetically identical plant without using a
         | seed.
        
       | LoganDark wrote:
       | What is this deft gesture? Is there a description of the actual
       | method or how it works?
        
       | nytesky wrote:
       | If it is this hard to pollinate how in the world did vanilla
       | evolve to survive??
        
         | boomboomsubban wrote:
         | It survived just fine where it evolved, as the bee necessary
         | for pollination was common.
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-14 23:02 UTC)