INTRODUCTION

This book developed unintentionally while I was trying to find out what would be the result if fertile soil was made unfertile without radical interventions.

I had figured it as follows: first I would carefully work with a rotary cultivator which, I supposed, would give rise to ruderal plants mainly. I also assumed some trees would start to grow as meadows are often fringed with trees. These trees would be cut time and again and the mishmash of ruderal plants would gradually disappear as the soil was calming down. Then flowering plants would have the chance of growing and the goal would be reached in, say, 10 years. One book even mentioned that it would be possible to have quite a nice flower meadow in 5 years. But none of this happened..

The way I had pictured it did not correspond at all with reality and this reinforced my interest in the behaviour of plants. It will be essential for a follow-up investigation to mow with a scythe and locally with a sickle. Mechanized methods yield less plant species on account of which figure 3 still contains a few traces of "noise" instead of waves. The system of plant communities was used to make order out of the chaos that occurred each year. Completely unexpectedly and surprisingly the investigation revealed an influence of the sun wind on plant species, next a connection with the revolution of the earth and finally an indication of the origin of the planetary system. The Law of Titius-Bode comes to the fore. This all relies on the correctness of figure 3 , which can only be achieved when working with the utmost accuracy.

The above experiment should be repeated as the result was found more or less accidentally. It is expected that the sun wind will exert more influences on other forms of life on earth. A continuation of this inquiry is therefore deemed important, especially since the lifetime of people usally is 84 years.

The greater part of this report is available in Dutch (Planten en Planeten) by Profiel at Bedum ( click here )

The developments occurring in the meadow are explained more elaborately in the book: "Plantengemeenschappen en zonnevlekken"(Plant communities and sun spots), which was published by Profiel at Bedum, the Netherlands, in 1994.

H.J.R. Perdijk, August 1999

 
PLANTS AND PLANETS

June 4, 1998 ; Completed August 18, 2003

H.J.R. Perdijk

The attempt was to make a highly fertile meadow more unfertile and to follow the annual changes in the vegetation occurring in the process. It proved difficult to do this well on such a large surface (1800 square metres). The various species of plants are subdivided into three groups with the help of the categorization used to describe plant communities: ruderal species, meadow and wood species. The behaviour of these groups gives a good insight into the recovery of the soil after rotary cultivation. However, it was also found that the three groups had varying numbers of varieties. This seems to be occasioned indirectly by the sun wind who modulates cosmic radiation. Finally a connection is demonstrated between the revolution of the earth and the three groups: ruderal, meadow and wood species. This in turn yields a work model for further investigations into the planetary system.

The soil

The soil (1800 square metres) of the meadow consists of loamy sand ( figure 1 ). The meadow is located at the rear of a former field as a result of which the soil bulges. This neglected, wet meadow was superficially milled in 1982 with a hand cultivator. The differences in altitude were intensified by creating a bank of the fertile soil adjacent to it. This soil was cut off superficially leaving a thinner layer of fertile soil. A "marsh" was also dug. In addition, a "mountain" was formed using the excavated soil. The mountain was then covered with fertile soil from the gullies. Drainage is such that groundwater - and rainwater too- will never get too high.

Due to the bulging character of the meadow there is not much difference in altitude. However, there is a substantial difference in altitude between mountain and marsh bottom. Currently, the entire meadow has a highly fertile milled soil as upper layer varying in altitude and thickness.

Groundwater

In wintertime, the groundwater is at a high level but it is 80 cms lower in summer. During the summer, the meadow is kept moist to fairly wet through capillary action. During the winter the groundwater levels out fertility.

Lime

To protect the soil from acid rain it was scattered with lime each year (150 à 200 kgs Ca+Mg). Lime also generates calcium phosphate causing the soil to become impoverished. As the meadow was cut twice yearly with scythe and sickle thereby removing the plants, the soil had impoverished even more. The easily dissociating phosphates in the soil reduce the dissociation of the ill dissolving calcium phosphate. This is why calcium is of hardly any contribution to the available food for plants. This situation continues until the well dissolvable phosphates become exhausted.

Conditions constant

The food remains constant for many years while the weather conditions are being neutralized through the differences in altitude and the density of the fertile layer. In actual fact nothing about the conditions is changed. This justifies the expectation that after the soil has set, the same plant species will be found each year although on varying places depending on the weather conditions.

The remarkable thing is that it is sometimes hard to trace a large number of plant species whereas in other years they are found quite easily. After 1984, 80% of the species annually returns in varying quantities (masses), the remaining 20% vary in type. This accounts for the fluctuation in figure 3 as was found later on.

 
Diagrams

In connection with this two diagrams are significant, the figure 2 and 3. In figure 2 an estimate is given of the massive presence or otherwise of some plants. This could only be done through estimation, counting was impossible in view of the large surface.

As already known, pioneer vegetation is the first to appear after working with a rotary cultivator. The following year ruderal perennials appear, next wood formation tends to occur. This was also found in our case, yet we had expected a more gradual course than is shown in figure 2 . This fluctuation (in a better way, using counts) is described in the book Wilde Planten  ⁽¹⁾  ("Wild Plants") in the chapter on succession. The only thing that can be said, however, is that a repeating pattern was found in which other plants appear over and over again.

The method of making estimates of frequently occurring plants proved unsuitable to keep up with the developments in vegetation over a long time. The minutes state that in spring 1986 the meadow was first full with flowers but also that an increasing number of alders was found in the course of the same year. It was the first time that the meadow was remarkably in bloom and that trees were growing. The notes say: the meadow gives the impression that plants will split up into groups, groups that will develop themselves in different ways. This, however, is not so clear from figure 2 , yet it induced us to look into the groups of plant species.

 
Plant communities

We had to look for a different method that would include all plant species in the meadow and would be of long-term use. This method was found in the classification used to describe plant communities (see Westhoff and Den Held  ⁽²⁾ ). A plant community is a group of plants that remarkably often are found close to each other. However, they usually do not belong to the same family. It is rather something of a commune. As for these communities, further distinctions are made such as Formation, class, order, union, association and sometimes sub-association. But these do not apply in our case. What we needed was an overview of the entire meadow, a distinction in large-scale groups. We will refer to these as ruderal, meadow and wood (see table 1 ), sometimes indicated by the abbrevations : r, m, and w.

To form large groups like these we will depart from the class a plant belongs to. When the plants have been grouped in classes, the groups ruderal, meadow and wood are found through counting. This, however, is quite a complex procedure so we will continue first with an illustration of it.

The flora of Heukels-van Ooststroom ⁽³⁾ (elaborately dealt with in "Plantengemeenschappen in Nederland") first gives a description of a plant and then continues with the class it belongs to together with any subdivisions. For the purpose of our inquiry, however, we only need the first numbers, the classes.

The large stinging-nettle is recorded as: P17; 17Acl; 38Aa, this means the plant is found in classes 17 and 38. It belongs to class 17 but the class printed in italics, class 38, indicates that the plant plays a special role in class 38. For the purpose of our study we will consider the connection with class 38 as a "weak connection". However, this connection will become a strong one when it appears a large number of plants has a weak connection with class 38. This is frequently found. With the help of a few plants the arithmetic method of figure 3 is clarified (see also table 1) :

As can be deduced from this example with 6 plant species, the amount of data increases from 6 to 12 when introducing classes. In practice the number of data usually increases by a factor of 1.5.

The example also indicates that it is not always necessary to find a large number of plants in the meadow. Sometimes that's just all there is. A limited number of plant species particularly occurs after working with a rotary cultivator. In 1982, only 9 plant species were found. Still, these 9 species showed that due to their weak connection with the wood (classes printed in italics) that a wood might eventually develop (figure 3).

The method proved highly suitable to observe the soil returning to a state of balance after working with the rotary cultivator: the dotted lines in figure 3 . As can be seen, this takes quite some time even after careful working with the rotary cultivator.

If after some time 60 plant species are found and classes are introduced, the plants will be strongly interrelated in the groups ruderal, wood and meadow. Groups of entwined species are at issue here. All class characteristics of plants are registered and the groups are balanced against each other. In the end the weighing will determine the place of the points in figure 3 . The group which is represented most by the classes, will be located at the highest point in this figure.

It becomes plausible from table 2 that when finding a large number of plant species, the groups of ruderal, wood and meadow will yield the same number of classes, each 33.3%. This may deviate in case of domination of one of the three groups. As the measurements show, this is usually the case. One wonders where the energy causing these fluctuations, originates.

Connections between the groups

Ruderal plants and meadow plants too are quite strongly related with the wood beause of the relatively large numbers of weak connections between them. However, there is only a slight connection between ruderal and meadow plants as they require conflicting types of soil. Ruderal plants grow steadily in places where the soil has been disturbed whereas meadow plants need soil that has settled down. If peace and quiet in the meadow are disturbed by a mole passing through, yarrow is likely to appear on the molehill (13 Bal; 20Bc4; 34A). Actually, this plant has no special connection to whatsoever. Common grass, too, (18 Aa; 20Ba4) has a weak connection to ruderal and meadow plants. Disturbance by animals is the likely cause for the occurrence of such species. Ruderal plants and meadow plants do not get along, however, they are both the precursors of the wood.

 
The hexagon

Above, a few plant species came up, but when we start talking in terms of classes, as in figure 3 , we lose track of them. With figure 4 , however, we can subdivide plants into groups that can be mentioned separately so we can follow what is happening to the plants themselves. The list of plants that were found in 9 years has also been classified that way.

 
Comparision between figures 2 and 3

In figure 3 wavy lines connect the corresponding points to each other with the axis drawn in stripes. Curves above the axis refer to dominating groups. Some of these curves are specified in thicker lines. If we compare these with the peaks in figure 2 , they appear to correspond with the abundantly growing plants mentioned there. This leads us to the following conclusion:

If a certain group (ruderal, wood or meadow) is represented by relatively many species, some of those species will be found in large numbers.

It also becomes clear from this, however, that the seemingly ongoing line in figure 2 cannot be considered a whole. It consists of line fragments that correspond to the plant groups (ruderal, wood or meadow) that alternately come to the fore.

 
Recovery of the disturbance

The curved axes in figure 3 indicate the recovery of the soil after working with the rotary cultivator in 1982. Up to 1985, the problems caused by the disturbance are noticeable but then practically disappear. For after 1985, the 33.3-axis is almost reached and each year some 60 plant species are found. Yet it will take at least 10 years for the recovery to be complete.