Harvesting crowded central clonal plants improves remaining plant growth

Evidence

Leeks are clonal plants that multiply by division, spreading the patch wider and wider. As a result, they tend to become crowded in the center of a patch, so I try to harvest there. In this way my taking can help the growth of the remaining plants by thinning them out. From camas bulbs to sweetgrass, blueberries to basket willow, our ancestors found ways to harvest that bring long-term benefit to plants and people. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 636

Categorization

• XREF: Builds directly on chapters 38-39’s finding that sweetgrass flourishes when harvested, extending the mutualism principle to leeks. — connects to: Three Sisters plants partition water by rooting at different depths — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 463; Stable habitats favor clonal asexual reproduction over sexual spore production — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 317; Sweetgrass flourishes when harvested and declines when left alone — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 570
• SEED: Sustains the reciprocity ethic via plant physiology: a harvest ethic grounded in clonal thinning mechanics would make a strong essay on ‘taking well.‘

Broader Connections

• Sweetgrass flourishes when harvested and declines when left alone #exemplifies (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 570
• Stable habitats favor clonal asexual reproduction over sexual spore production #corroborates (0.72) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 317