Copaifera Langsdorffii: The Diesel Tree

[Logic]

The diesel tree produces terpene hydrocarbons in its wood and leaves, and this had led to interest in the search for sources of renewable energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copaifera_langsdorffii

NOT 40 liters a year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRjHOSrTMXw

One wonders what might be with some genetic engineering..?

[freebeard]

So... The big money is in pharma. Got it.

[Logic]

Originally Posted by freebeard

So... The big money is in pharma. Got it.

ATM yes.
But at a guess; the big money (till the Oil Industry 'face down in a ditches' you) may be in the in the genetic modification of this tree to produce more diesel.

It would take a couple of years to grow, but it'd be super cool to pull up to your:
Garden Tree with a Tap in it
and fill up your vehicle.

[redpoint5]

We haven't seen anything yet with regard to GMOs.

[freebeard]

It would take a couple of years to grow, but it'd be super cool to pull up to ... it
and fill up your vehicle.

Hemp is faster.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

We haven't seen anything yet with regard to GMOs.

Agreed. Most of the things we try to brute force with our petrochemical industries might be done trivially with appropriately engineered biological systems. It's a wonder we haven't seen more of these yet.

[freebeard]

It's a wonder we haven't seen more of these yet.

It's no longer a wonder for me.

CoEvolution Quarterly ran a story that began by pointing out the a wasp approaches an Oak tree, injects it with an hormone, and the tree grows a gall; which is a home that protects and feeds the wasp henceforth. It's in here somewhere (https://wholeearth.info/) Maybe an AI could retrieve it.

So why can't we be as effective as a wasp?

Baubotanik
Baubotanik is a building method in which architectural structures are created through the interaction of technical joints and plant growth. The term entails the practice of designing and building living structures using living plants. In this regard, living and non-living elements are intertwined in such a way that they grow together into plant-technical composite structures. The Baubotanik method combines the aesthetic and ecological qualities of living trees with the static functions and structural requirements of buildings, thereby reducing the need for artificial building materials Continued in Wikipedia

Axel Erlandson (1884–1964)
Axel Erlandson was born in 1884, the son of Swedish immigrants. A farmer by trade, he was inspired to begin sculpting trees after observing a natural graft between two sycamores. Axel began to shape trees, planting them in patterns, then pruning, grafting and bending them. He experimented with box elder, birch, ash, elm, and weeping willow, using young and flexible branches bent into loops, hearts, chairs, spiral staircases, zigzags, rings, birdcages, towers, picture frames and ladders, all held in place with a framework for several years until they were capable of self support. He sculpted some 30 trees at his farm near Turlock, California, talking to them to help them grow.

More at https://www.arborsmith.com/history

Here's something for Logic -- a paper with 60 references https://www.semanticscholar.org: A circuit analogy based girth growth model for living architecture design

They've made bridges from Ficus Elastica in India for ages.

Inosculation

Inosculation is a natural phenomenon in which trunks, branches or roots of two trees grow together in a manner biologically similar to the artificial process of grafting. It customarily results when tree limbs are braided or pleached. The branches first grow separately in proximity to each other until they touch. At this point, the bark on the touching surfaces is gradually abraded away as the trees move in the wind. Once the cambium of two trees touches, they sometimes self-graft and grow together as they expand in diameter Continued in Wikipedia

Hawthorne is Inosculate. Plant a row of clones three feet apart and espalier and pleach the lower branches. After a decade remove two of three and you'd have a living fence covered wit thorns.

Uhh... Don't get me started, I guess.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Agreed. Most of the things we try to brute force with our petrochemical industries might be done trivially with appropriately engineered biological systems. It's a wonder we haven't seen more of these yet.

Today's farming is no longer a guy with a horse in the field. It is an army of tractors and other machines, all running on the fuel that they will later be harvesting. And the operators of these machines do not live next to the field, but often commute a large distance, again using fuel.
It may pay off financially with government incentives, but is it sustainable or even profitable environmentally?