Biomimicry

We must draw our standards from the natural world. We must honor with the humility of the wise the bounds of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence.

Nature runs on sunlight. Nature uses only the energy it needs. Nature fits form to function. Nature recycles everything. Nature rewards cooperation. Nature banks on diversity. Nature demands local expertise. Nature curbs excesses from within. Nature taps the power of limits.

‘community assembly’ studies started to show up in the literature, and they suggested that you could get persistent communities containing as few as eight species.

“Many pests tend to specialize on one host plant species, so when there’s a diverse mix, pests have a harder time finding their target plant.

he drew up a list of all the crops he could think of, separating them into either annual or perennial, herbaceous or woody, vegetative or seed/fruit yielding.

Our journey began ten thousand years ago with the Agricultural Revolution, when we broke

they were also looking for agronomic characteristics important to a farmer: reduced seed shattering (so seed heads don’t break open and spill their grain before harvest), uniform time of maturity, ease of threshing, and large seed size.

other than rocks and metals, it’s hard to find any raw material we use that was not once alive, owing its ultimate existence to plants.

have to go looking for sunlight. Their seedlings can tolerate their parents’ shade, so wave after wave of the same species can grow up here.