Coriolis Effect and Plant Growth

malhomme

It occured to me last week, while taking the boy on a stroller ride, that the reason most of the trees I see spiral couter-clock-wise is because of the coriolis effect. I've long known that "unwinding" a tree is a blackbelt way to make dramatic trunk bends, but never thought to link it to coriolis.

Darwin was the first to observe spiraling in apical growth. Does anyone have any nerdy links regarding the coriolis effect and plant growth? Any observations from our Australian friends about the dominate spiraling direction of your plants?

Cheers,
Jim

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pootsie

I gots a groovy linky in my box of fun at home, and will give it to ya when I gets there.

pootsie,
workin' hard or hardly workin'

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TreeBay

I think I recall reading that the Chinese and Japanese Wisteria coil in different directions. I don't recall if this is true or which is which, but I do know that I coiled my wisteria in the wrong direction around the posts of my arbor and it has been fighting me ever since.

Regards,

Matt

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azcelt

Is that dependent on which hemisphere the tree grows-
Kind of like water going down a drain - you know, cw in one
ccw in the other-

Richard

Martinez

BAD Coriolis FAQ

BAD Coriolis Page

Getting Around the Coriolis Force

Its been awhile since I've seen the term Coriolis force/effect...lol. I worked at Head Quarters Air Force Weather Agency in Omaha, Nebraska for my last year in the military. I was part of the environmental events analysis division.

We tracked, measured, and sent out bulletins for environmental events all over the world. Hurricanes, Volcanic eruptions, Haboobs, Shamals, etc... you get the idea. Coriolis plays a significant part in the formation of Hurricanes, but hurricanes are a very "large scale" phenomena.

The Coriolis effect/force is a measure of deflection on moving objects in the atmosphere as they relate to the earths rotation. Basically, It deflects to the right in the northern Hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. It becomes "more apparent" as you travel north or south from the equator. (where the earth spins the fastest)

The Coriolis effect/force is really very small.

Source

I hope this helped.

I don't want to come off as a know it all, I'm certainly not. There is a lot more to it than what I have just said... however, one could get a better idea of atmospheric effects on plant habits by studying geostrophic (pressure) gradients locally... and trade winds I.e. Polar easterlies, Prevailing westerlies, etc. globally.

[EDIT: for my friends down under, Coriolis is significant for the formation of Typhoons as well. Anywhere from 5 to 20 degrees north or south of the equator.]

Vonsgardens

I once tried to apply the coriolis effect to water going down drains in opposite directions in the hemispheres, that didn't work either.

Thank you for the great answer- precision helps to deflect incorrect assumptions.

John

bisco_bonsai

What your talking about here is something called "nutation" and it is caused by endogenous factors inside the plant, not exogenous environmental effects. Darwin's original idea of an "endogenous oscillator" has given way to the view that nutation is a result of a plants gravisensory apparatus reacting to the Earth's gravity. However, experiments on Helianthus annuus on the Spacelab under microgravity proved that gravity doesn't play a role in the initiation or continuation of nutation, so maybe Darwin was right on this one. Wait, maybe not, gravitropically impared mutants of arabidopsis have been shown to have reduced nutation. Bottom line, there is a lot we still don't know. I think the Coreolis Effect would be easy enough to prove in plants if someone were to grow one seed of a specific plant in the northern hemisphere, and one seed of the exact same plant in the southern hemisphere under the same light conditions and examine how they each grow. My guess is that there would be no effect.

Here's an interesting article on the nutation experiments mentioned above.
( http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/full/132/4/1779 ).

All the best,
JDL

pootsie

Found my linky:
http://www.goldenarrowbonsai.com/spiral%20grain.htm

pootsie

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TreeBay

I thought all those uncorraborated reports of alien abductions and anal probes were X-files hogwash?

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