Ventura County UCCE Farm Advisor Ben Faber will be appearing on an upcoming segment of the History Channel’s “Life After People” series. The show peers into the future and portrays how the world will likely change after people disappear. Experts in various fields are interviewed to provide knowledge to help guide the imagination of the writer’s down a likely scenario. This is where Ben comes in.
How will plants change without humans? Ben explains that annuals, especially food sources such as pumpkins, are highly domesticated plants. Over time these plants have been selected for desired characteristics yearly – seeds from pumpkins that meet or exceed the desired characteristics defined by humans are planted the next year to reproduce the highest quality traits. This human selection process changes what might normally be there. Without people involved in the selection process pumpkins will return to a natural/wild selection process. Over time plant characteristics will change as nature selects traits.
The story is different for perennials. Perennials have a longer period to reproduction and tend to be less domesticated. Ben gives the example of Christmas trees. Humans do not use these trees for food, so we have not used selection processes to greatly change the outcome. These types of tress will stay much the same after people are gone. The exception will be trees grown outside of their natural environments. Perennials growing in environments that depend on people to care on them for their survival, for instance providing water, nutrients, or pesticides will not survive without them.
Dr. Ben Faber