plant and ecosystems nerd

Step One: catch a bunch of pollen from the tassel.

Mmm, pollen. You'll know it's time when the tassel opens up and has the dangley things (anthers), and you tap it gently, pollen visibly falls out.

I, and a bunch of other people, catch it in a sheet of folded paper, as you can see above.

This makes it easy to do Step Two: sprinkle the pollen on to some receptive silks:

They're ready for pollen as soon as you see the silks. You just kinda tap it on there and the corn does it's thing. I don't know exactly when they stop being receptive to pollen, but I'd bet that if they look browned and dried out it's a no go.

Why would someone want to do this? Well, there's two scenarios that I know of:

1. You don't have enough space to grow enough corn to ensure wind pollination is effective.

2. You are breeding corn and you want to be sure of which plants are pollinating which plants.

This was written because too often I see someone online has planted a single row of corn, because they didn't know it's wind pollinated and that you won't get good ears with a single row of corn. Unless you hand pollinate.

Like worstie, I can barely promote my own published book without wanting to curl up and die.

They’re just not disclosing it as ads, which they are supposed to do, and instead it's marketed in a very Tumblr-esque way which can be summed up as “omg guys look how CUTE this is” followed by a different account underneath going “omg found it!!” and it links to a drop ship site with the item(s).

And the link usually has an affiliate tracker in it, which you may or may not be able to spot unless you’re familiar with them, which is also something you are legally supposed to disclose.

I used to get a lot of offers from around 2016-2020 to sell “moon lamps” on here, y’know those orb lights that look like a moon? Yeah. I was offered a higher kickback to make it look like I wasnt posting an add because these sellers know Tumblrites don’t like ads.

They wanted it to look as organic and hyped up as possible and then I’d just so happen to be like “omg you guys it's on sale” and post a link. Which is skeevy as shit and also illegal af in the US.

It’s like the insta/tiktok girlies saying “link in bio” to get around saying “here’s a product I make money on if you buy it” because they want to sound like your friend because people are more likely to impulse buy stuff if a “friend” is recommending something.

They’re also trusting that everyone knows “link in bio” means “affiliate link” which is technically not enough of a disclosure but whatever.

This is why I tag all my own book promos with “affiliate links” because depending on which storefront you buy Hunger Pangs from, I may get a kickback from the vender which I do to help mediate the fees I lose from distribution. It’s not much—literal pennies in some cases—but I’m still legally required to state it.

It’s also why when I do post products I use or like, I make a point of letting people know I’m not an affiliate and not sponsored because despite the legal ramifications these people are flirting with by not disclosing their affiliate status, I want to be fully transparent with my followers when it comes to me trying to sell them things.

Y’all keep my lights on by reading my work and through my ko-fi and patreon. I am not about to risk that trust for the sake of some shitty vibrator sales from a sketch-ass drop shipper who wants me to pretend I’m not selling you things.

So, yeah. People do successfully sell stuff on here. A lot of us small indie creators sell our own work all the time.

Step One: catch a bunch of pollen from the tassel.

Mmm, pollen. You'll know it's time when the tassel opens up and has the dangley things (anthers), and you tap it gently, pollen visibly falls out.

I, and a bunch of other people, catch it in a sheet of folded paper, as you can see above.

This makes it easy to do Step Two: sprinkle the pollen on to some receptive silks:

They're ready for pollen as soon as you see the silks. You just kinda tap it on there and the corn does it's thing. I don't know exactly when they stop being receptive to pollen, but I'd bet that if they look browned and dried out it's a no go.

Why would someone want to do this? Well, there's two scenarios that I know of:

1. You don't have enough space to grow enough corn to ensure wind pollination is effective.

2. You are breeding corn and you want to be sure of which plants are pollinating which plants.

This was written because too often I see someone online has planted a single row of corn, because they didn't know it's wind pollinated and that you won't get good ears with a single row of corn. Unless you hand pollinate.

Excerpt from this story from Yale Climate Connections:

Those who deny or dismiss U.S. climate change have hit a Waterloo moment of sorts. The nation just experienced its hottest month in more than 130 years of analysis, which breaks a record that had stood since the infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930s. For the 48 contiguous states, the July 2026 average of 76.89 degrees Fahrenheit (24.94 degrees Celsius) came in 0.12°F (0.07°C) above the value from July 1936. This makes last month the hottest calendar month in national data going back to January 1895.

Remarkably, the contiguous U.S. average temperature was also the hottest on record for the past six months (February-July 2026), and for the past 12-, 18-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 60-month periods, as depicted in the Climate at a Glance plotting tool from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. The year to date (January-July) is the second-hottest on record nationally.

The sheer breadth of the 48-state heat for July was especially shocking. Only one U.S. state, Wyoming, had its hottest July on record, but nine other states had a top-10 hottest July, and every one of the contiguous states was warmer than average. Though not included in the contiguous U.S. report, Alaska had its 20th-coldest July on record and its 30th-coldest January-to-July period.

There’s no denying the scorching conditions of the 1930s Dust Bowl. An impressive 24 of the 48 contiguous U.S. states have yet to exceed the single hottest readings observed in each of those states during the 1930s.

However, the Dust Bowl has been misused for years in climate-denial writing and speaking to argue that human activity isn’t warming the nation’s climate to any great degree. In fact, human influence played a vast part in the Dust Bowl itself. Decades of overplowing by European settlers in the Plains and Midwest – in the erroneous belief that “rain follows the plow” – left the landscape vulnerable when a sequence of multi-year droughts struck. Huge volumes of topsoil simply blew away, and the denuded land heated up far more quickly than better-managed land would have. The Dust Bowl intersected with the Great Depression to make the 1930s a period of profound misery for millions of Americans.

We have got to stop framing our oppression in ways that promote the idea that other people cannot relate to our struggles. Not only does it isolate comrades in the struggle, it actively diminishes recognition of other struggles--often including those even more horrific than what we are at risk of. And this happens especially between Gay and Black struggles.

"when have straight people ever had to check what states were safe for them?" Sundown towns are still a thing. Starlight tours. What states have abortion access? What states have open carry? What states have stand your ground? What states have 3-strike rules? Women, people of color, disabled people, immigrants, and more have had to be abundantly cautious where they travel to. Straight trans people have much more travel risk right now than gay cis people.

It's a new iteration of the same tired question: "imagine if straight people weren't allowed to marry" interracial marriage in the US is younger than my parents. We disgrace people of color by forgetting their history and contemporary struggles, and we abandon queer people of color, Black queer people, by segmenting their overlapping fights.

They look very sad rn but in 2 years they will be so pretty. trust in a few years I will reblog this post to show how it changes

Remove most of the leaves, I leave 2 on now - unsure what the equivalent is for needled plants exactly, tbh there’s more here than I would leave now but I was still learning. This helps reduce moisture loss since plants breathe through their leaves. Also remove any flowers or fruits. Any part of the stem that will be buried should be leaf and needle free.

Dip plant into rooting hormone, I recommend Hormex #16. Then place the cuttings into a 50/50 mix of sand and perlite (or pumice), the lack of organic matter helps prevent rot, and then just wait and keep the “soil” moist. Some people keep cuttings under humidity domes.

For aquatic plants/very moisture loving, I just put them into water with rooting hormone. Adding willow cuttings can help as well since they make their own rooting hormones that end up in the water. Mint, basil (I have downloaded a Thai basil from phó fixings before), willows, and cottonwood are all easy to grow this way.

Not all cuttings will take especially in the beginning while you’re still learning, you will fail but that is how you learn. Some plants do not want to grow from cuttings either (Pawpaw apparently is one).

https://www.getroots.net/index.html

It has a searchable database, which will give you a entry, or multiple entries like this:

(Unless they don't have it yet)

Which can be very useful. Some plants have multiple entries, using different media or times of year, etc, which let's you compare success rates. They do have an email where you can send your own findings if you want to help build it.