Germination

The first space plant to flower and produce in the zero gravity of space is called Arabidopsis. It was grown on board the Soviet Union's Salyut-7 space station in 1982.

Germination happens when a baby plant is growing. The plant is between the cotyledons This is a seed. The seed is underground and is collecting nutrients.

When a seed starts to grow, we say it germinates. The cotyledons store food for the baby plant inside the seed. When the seed starts to germinate, the first thing to come out is the main root. The skin starts to split and the tiny shoot straightens, carrying the cotyledon(s) with it. The main root gets bigger. Side roots appear and so do leave. To grow, the seed's growing conditions usually have to be damp, warm, and dark, like springtime soil. A dry seed will stay dormant unless it soaks in some water. Then it will start to germinate

Source: Oracle Think Quest

Organic farming-advance sowing

Advance Sowing (also known as "no kill cropping") is an agricultural method developed by Bruce Maynard in 1996 in NSW, Australia that allows the production of annual crops from perennial grasslands. It consists in dry-sowing crops directly into existing pastures without using tillage, fertilizer or chemicals.

Advance Sowing has 5 major principles:

1. Sowing is done when the topsoil is dry.
2. Counter type sowing equipment must be used.
3. No Herbicides or pesticides are applied at any stage.
4. No Fertilizers are applied at any stage.
5. Grazing management must be good.

The rationale behind the method is to produce crops without simplifying the biodiversity. All other commonly used sowing methods of cropping rely on eliminating some or all of the plant and animals present to create an advantage for the growing crop. Advance Sowing relies on complementarity of plant/animal interactions to produce biomass that can be utilised directly for human consumption or fed to animals.

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