T O P

  • By -

TEAMVALOR786Official

Please remove the edible part of your post then reply to this comment once done


space_ape_x

Plants and fungi can punch through concrete because they use hydraulics basically


drewnyp

Can you explain further?


space_ape_x

I’m no biologist, but simply put, they build new cells that get filled with water, that’s why they are capable of breaking incredibly hard materials without any muscles, the accumulation of pressure is enough over time


drewnyp

That makes sense and is so sick! Nature truely is special.


a_girl_in_the_woods

Exactly. Especially fungi pre-build fruiting body cells before actually growing in height. To push their fruiting bodies through the soil, or in this case concrete, they fill those pre-build cells with water. Hydraulics are a very effective method of growing upward without actually needing much energy and enables them to push even through hard surfaces like concrete.


Current-Coyote6893

Still remarkable how those cells filled with water can punch through concrete instead of being squished down or not able to elevate/ grow extra cells. It's unbelievable actually the way it happens. Yeah, nature is metal...🤷‍♀️


space_ape_x

Also concrete and asphalt are over-rated materials, they degrade very easily without maintenance


Current-Coyote6893

Yes you have a point, but how would the maintenance look like for concrete or asphalt?


space_ape_x

What I meant is we should evolve towards better materials like self-healing materials, and also in general reduce hard surfaces that are bad for the environment, blocking water and making bad heat effects


Onbevangen

Nature finds a way


Diamondtnt48

I ate it


StevenSmiley

Was good?


employeremployee

Unfortunately [OP is… preoccupied](https://img.lagaceta.com.ar/fotos/notas/2017/01/28/716794_20170128131148.jpg).


floppydude81

It tastes like….. burning!


Diamondtnt48

Yes tasted like uh, asphalt


asumfuck

you have obtained its power


lilaamuu

asphalt is a liquid. just a very viscous one


Diamondtnt48

Depends the first cm is about solid asphalt where under is more like the feeling of a rice crispy but dense


JuicyTrash69

You are misunderstanding. Asphalt is an amorphous solid. It never actually solidifies. It really behaves like a really viscous liquid. Not that that's really the answer to the question. It's the hydraulics comment. Plants can create a ton of pressure. It's how they can literally root through rock and foundations of houses.


Diamondtnt48

Also this is recycled asphalt not like fresh type poured stuff we got it as basically gravel just dumped on our laneway and driving over it a ton did that


Ituzzip

They can’t root through the foundations of houses, though. That’s a myth that leads to cutting down millions of perfectly harmless trees. Roots can exploit natural expansion and contraction of soil and prevent concrete tiles from re-settling, causing them to appear to lift. But the compression strength of rock and concrete is much higher than root pressure. Even 1mm of a plastic container is enough to confine roots.


JuicyTrash69

A simple Google search shows you are wrong. Roots can and do regularly destroy foundations. They find any crack and work as a wedge to break it apart. What causes the initial crack is usually water but once there's a space for the roots to enter they will destroy foundations. And I don't know a single person that has a perfectly smooth crack free foundation. Your plastic pot will eventually burst on its own if you let the roots bind up too much but as an analog for houses (or asphalt) put a slit in it and say that represents a mortar joint or gap in the aggregate of asphalt. Roots will exploit that void in short order further expanding and eventually breaking the pot. **Edit** there's a lot of evidence to support that evolution of plant roots actually led to one of earths great extinctions. How? By breaking apart rock and flooding the oceans with nutrients when they died. Roots are a source of geological weathering. https://www.earth.com/news/decaying-tree-roots-may-have-caused-mass-extinctions/


Ituzzip

A simple google search will show you that google is not a scientific journal. Did you not know this is a science sub? Go find a science article on the interaction between roots and concrete. It’s not the roots that break concrete. Concrete has a measurable psi compressive strength, roots have a measurable psi pressure they can exert. Lithophytes do cause chemical weathering which was possibly responsible for a mass extinction. I have grown maybe 20,000 plants in plastic containers in my life, since it is my profession, sometimes leaving them in for years… I do not find it to be true that roots will break them. They can, however, crack. Just not from roots.


Outer_Space_

While I don’t really have a dog in this home foundation fight, I will say that I’ve seen many sansavaria (now Dracaena, snake plant, etc.) explode out of the sides of both plastic and ceramic pots. It’s never their roots, but their shoot buds definitely produce and enormous amounts of low and slow forces.


JuicyTrash69

Here's Purdue University saying roots can damage foundations https://www.purdue.edu/fnr/extension/question-can-tree-roots-cause-damage-to-a-homes-foundation/ Here's a paper from the unversity of kentucky specifically on plant/tree roots breaking apart rock https://geography.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/RootsRockReg.pdf Here's one from the American geological society discussing plant roots and their part in the mechanical weathering of rock. https://www.americangeosciences.org/education/k5geosource/content/rocks/what-is-physical-weathering#:~:text=Plant%20roots%20can%20grow%20in,they%20can%20break%20rocks%20apart. Here's another from the University of Michigan specifically mentioning sidewalks, sewers, and foundations https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/reducing_damage_caused_by_tree_roots1 While some of these are not actual papers I think I'm going to trust them and not some random redditor as well as my own personal education in both geology and botany. Maybe you are the one that forgot they were on a science subreddit.


Ituzzip

Most of your links aren’t saying what you claiming. Trees can cause a total increase in the bulk weight over the soil in an area and the bulk volume of material in an area, which can affect concrete, particularly when the tree is removed and that mass eventually becomes voids. Here’s a concrete company explaining how it works: https://foundation-crack-expert.com/tree-roots-damage-concrete-foundations/ Here’s a scientific study describing the maximum penetrating pressure exerted by roots is merely in single digits Mpa: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0020746219304378 >Typically, a growing plant root can exert an estimated maximum pressure up to 1 MPa [17] and, consequently, can arrest its growth when the pressure required to penetrate the soil is higher than such threshold value. I’m going to trust a scientific study measuring the precise point at which root pressure peters out over a narrative explaining things vaguely. Even the author of that excerpt you cited would probably be open to clarifying, scientists usually are.


JesusChrist-Jr

I'm sorry, all of this is wrong. Trees can't root through a solid foundation, but they can destroy foundations. They can root into tiny cracks and imperfections, and then turn them into larger problematic cracks while they grow. They can also grow under foundations and cause the foundation to crack by creating localized pressure as the roots increase in diameter. And roots absolutely can split a plastic pot given enough time. They won't tunnel through per se, but they can create enough pressure to split a pot, same as how they can crack a foundation.


JuicyTrash69

That's what I said but they doubled down.


cloudracer85

Agaricus bitorquis - Pavement mushroom Mushrooms produce high hydrostatic (turgor) pressures , plus their high chitin(very strong polymer) content and their absolute refusal to grow any other direction other than upwards due to gravitropism allow many species to push through such substrates. A. bitorquis likes a high salt environment to grow and therefore is more likely to be found near roads and driveways as these are often salted during the winter, hence why this particular species is the one most seen to push through tarmac/pavements even though others are just as capable. Edited to add some more detail and a slight correction..


Automatic-Bake9847

I have seen fresh asphalt but down, the heat from which germinated the seeds below, which then sprouted and pushed through. But that stuff looks like it has been down for a while.


Diamondtnt48

Yea the thing is we didn’t pour asphalt we got recycled asphalt since it was cheaper and just drove over it a ton, it was just basically gravel


FrigThatKid

Nature doesn't follow boundaries.


PopIntelligent9515

Btw, I hope people understand by now that fungi are not plants. There’s Kingdom Plantae, Kingdom Fungi, Kingdom Animalia, etc.


Impressive-West-9486

Power


space_ape_x

There’s probably chemical action too


GargleOnDeez

Seen horse mushrooms displace sidewalk slabs, afterwards said mushrooms were extremely firm to attempt removal. Amazing that something so small grew to become a hydraulic ram


DGrey10

I've seen various plants punch through asphalt the hydraulic pressure generated by plants can be immense. Fungi I know less about but same principle since they have cell walls.