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A comment on Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot. Parent comment

Re:Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot by Retric on Friday July 07, 2017 @11:21AM (#14719025)
Ahh, no this is similar to the process that causes Bonsai to work. Dandelions have a fairly massive root with plenty of reserves to regrow after something eat's the top. Mowing simply causes similar responses as a goat would.

Plants can't move around so they evolved to deal with a really wide range of environments and stuff eating them etc.

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Re:Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot by JoeAltmaier on Friday July 07, 2017 @11:36AM (#14719178)
Nah. Dandelions don't regrow stems; this can't be something done in response to being mowed. The plant doesn't think "I got mowed! I guess I'll grow a different way now".

Its a different growth pattern in the plant. Gotta be driven by genetics.

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Re:Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot by Retric on Friday July 07, 2017 @12:08PM (#14719520)
Dandelions are actually perennials so they will regrow stems several times, and survive multiple years. They will also tend to flower most abundantly in spring, but can re-flower in the fall.

Further, it's not just the stem involved, if your mowing regularly your taking out the leaves.

PS: There are also a few different plants that all look similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dandelion

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Re:Roomba Inventor Joe Jones on His New Weed-Killing Robot by JoeAltmaier on Friday July 07, 2017 @12:41PM (#14719804)
Yup the flat ones were none of those. They were really weird knarly mutated plants with exactly the same structure, leaves, stem and flowers as dandelion but grown flat and warped to hug the ground.
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