h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(If indeed it is the RHS who are saying this)

But this doesn't seem right to me http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-22967160

When bodies decay they putrify. That's a very different kind of decomposition to the process that makes compost, and I recall reading somewhere that the results of putrefaction aren't very useful to plants the same way that compost is. I know, though, there are old country sayings about burying dead animals underneath a newly planted fruit tree, so perhaps there's something to it after all?

Carnivores eat animals for their organic nitrogen (amino acids) and other materials. Plants take in their "food" in nutrient form hence need the animal to decay into inorganic components (nitrates, ammonium, phosphates etc)

An interesting question!

I don't think you've understood what I'm asking.

It is, KB, and I wish I could remember where I read the information about purefaction vs compost.

Saw one of those 'where we come from' type documentaries recently
that suggested the rise of agriculture in hunter-gather societies was
likely a result of nomadic travels which often followed the same trails
year after year. Seasonally passing known sources of wild berries, nuts,
grains, etc., they observed that there was substantially better growth
occurring in places where they had buried their dead or abandoned
animal carcasses. This sort of knowledge lead to more permanent
settlements and crop-raising and may be the Truth behind rituals
involving sacrificial offerings.

~jwf~

Sounds like the plant is a carnivorous one - like Venus Flytraps and things that get nutrients from decaying insects.

Maybe not, actually, re-reading the article, but Fish, Blood and Bone is a popular type of fertiliser as it contains N, P and K, so the results of the trap are potentially similar to that.

I wondered about carnivorous plants but they mostly eat insects (very small with not much putrefaction), and they do it by dissolving the creature in... stuff. I guess some of them might also devour a small rodent from time to time? Something the size of a sheep, however, makes a lot of goo - nasty, nasty goo - as it putrefies. That's the stuff I'm dubious about.

When I was at school I had a teacher who, every time we went past a graveyard on a geography school trip, would say "Lot's of good fertiliser there!" What I think I've heard about putrefaction goo would disagree with that.

The sheep eating tag might be complete bowl lux. I can't find any reliable source for it.

As far as I can tell small animals are supposed to get trapped on the spines and die through starvation. They will then decay away, be eaten by insects etc, insect poo and bits of flesh will drop onto the ground, the flesh will continue to decay. Decay products and insect poo will then absorb into the soil, where eventually they will be taken up by the roots of the plant, and voila bon-appetite.

There are companies that specialize in finding the right ingredients to make dead animals decompose into harmless compost. Everything decays sooner or later, even under less than ideal circumstances. If this were not the case, the world's forests would have crumbled long ago, brought down by the animals that have died there.

In UK politics, Chancellor Denis Healey once described being attacked by Geoffrey Howe (opposition chancellor) as 'being savaged by a dead sheep'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/historic_moments/newsid_8185000/8185778.stm

Well when my father died he wanted a green burial so he was interred in a wicker basket and a tree was planted on top so it can't be that bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffid



FB

Given sheep arn't indigenous in South America surely it evolved as a llama eating plant

An uncle I never knew was a Boy Scout when he was
killed in a bike accident and his troop planted a small
oak on his grave. Even when I was a kid, it was the
biggest tree in the cemetery.

~jwf~

Oaks have been known to live a thousand years. Maybe the tree will still stand long after people have forgotten that there was a cemetary around it.

There was a tree near my home town. It was called the Beaman Oak. It was already there when the first settlers arrived in Central Massachusetts in the early 1600s. That would have made it close to 400 years old when it was cut down in the late 20th Century. When I waas gropwing up, it was perhaps the oldest tree in the state. 400 years is not long by oak standards, but new England shipbuilders needed oak wood for their vessels. They also needed fence posts. which could be supplied by cutting away the top of an oak about 8 or 9 feet from the ground, and making it produce side branches, which would be cut off when they
reached the desired size. This was called coppicing.

In any event, whatever other old oaks there were either blew down in the great gales [a class-4 hurricane every 135 years or so; the last
one was the hurricane of 1938], or were used for shipbuilding. Another immense oak was the Avery Oak of Dedham, which blew down int he Hurricane of 1938. When U.S.S. Constitution was being built, the builders approached the landowner for permission to use the Avery Oak for the ship. Permission was denied!