170 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
170 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
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G G
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w _____ ____ 1 000 666 "Capsicum annuum" w
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D // | \ 11 0 0 6 by Priest D
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* || ____ | || | 1 0 0 666 *
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G || || \ / | || | 1 0 0 6 6 issue #106 of "GwD: The American Dream G
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w \\___// \/\/ |____/ 111 000 666 with a Twist -- of Lime" * rel 09/20/01 w
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D D
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--- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- ---
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Walk into any average garden in west Texas, and you will most likely find
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a variety of plants. Some types of plants, however, you will not find.
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Tropical plants, for instance do not grow well in our desert climate. To grow
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such plants, we would need a greenhouse. A greenhouse is a building and a
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tool-a structure built entirely to grow plants. It offers a controlled
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environment that can be tailored to suit any type of plant from any given
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growing environment. Walk into a greenhouse here in west Texas, and you will
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encounter first the conservatorium. The lobby or anteroom to a greenhouse is
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a room which displays plants exotic to the native region, showing what kind of
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plants will most likely be grown within. Once inside, if you look up, you
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most likely see what is called a ridge and furrow design in the roof. The
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glass panes that allow light in for the plants are typically installed
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slantwise, much like the ridges and furrows of a garden. One of the greatest
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advantages of a greenhouse is the ability to control the temperature and
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moisture in the immediate area. Thermostats are kept in every room,
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monitoring and regulating the temperature for maximum growth of plants. A
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normal greenhouse is kept between eighty-two and eighty-five degrees
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Fahrenheit. Plants can also be watered on a regular schedule, once again
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increasing chances for optimal growth. It is quite easy to see how a
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greenhouse is essential for anyone trying to grow any type of plant not native
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to the area. Experiments can be conducted in the headhouse and subsequently
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moved to smaller rooms and thenceforth be monitored at the growers'
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convenience.
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As the title suggests, the author decided to grow a plant in a greenhouse;
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specifically, a cayenne pepper plant, or Capsicum annuum longum. Cayenne
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pepper (also known as chili or red hot pepper) is the fruit of Capsicum
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annuum, a shrubby, tropical plant that can grow to a height of up to 3 feet.
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The fruit is technically a berry. (The Cayenne Pepper, Nature-Herbs, Online)
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At maturity, the plant will have multiple branches, growing laterally up to
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two feet wide. The peppers will grow dark green and curl, before turning red
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upon ripening. The flowers of the plant grow upside down, to ready themselves
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to produce the peppers. The flowers are star-shaped and starkly white,
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growing to only to, at most, a centimeter in width. The petals are short and
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pointed and are not separated at the base of the flower. The leaves resemble
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the tip of a spear and can reach even three inches in length. They are simple
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leaves with only one leaf growing per petiole. On January 24th, 2001, the
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pepper seeds were planted. Clay pots with holes in the middle bottom were
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used. The hole prevented the soil and roots of the plant from becoming
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waterlogged. A perfect mixture of sand, clay, and loam was used as a soil.
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Too much clay would have caused the roots to drown, and too much sand would
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have resulted in the loss of too much water, thus starving the plant. The
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soil was placed in the pot up to one inch from the lip, firmly, but not
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tightly. The seeds for the pepper were scattered evenly across the top of the
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soil, and then completely covered with topsoil. Misted water was then applied
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until the topsoil took on a dark brown color. The potted seeds were left in
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the greenhouse to be tended to by staff, including fertilizing, watering, etc.
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The purpose of planting the plant was not to practice tending a plant, but
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rather to determine methods and materials for planting, growing, and in some
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cases, maybe harvesting the plant. This would be done by observing and
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monitoring the plants progress and growth.
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To the author's knowledge, no scarification or stratification was used to
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aid in germination of the seed. (When a seed is scratched to remove a tough
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outer covering, it is called scarification, stratification being when a seed
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is boiled for a time to simulate a warm and moist environment.) However, even
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without the use of these methods, the seed still germinated on the fifth of
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February, almost two weeks later. Since multiple seeds were planted, then
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multiple seedlings germinated. Greenhouse workers pulled all but one of the
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seedlings, leaving only the center-most seedling. This was done to allow the
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root system all the room in the pot to grow. On that afternoon, the plant was
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slightly over one centimeter tall, with two leaves shooting straight out,
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opposite each other, from the stem. The plant doubled its height in one week
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and produced two new leaves as well. These leaves also grew opposite each
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other, as did all following leaves. From that point onward, the plant
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averaged a new node and two new leaves (sometimes four) and a full centimeter
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in height every week until early March at which point growth increased in
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speed and development. Between March seventh and March twenty-sixth, the
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plant nearly tripled in height, producing almost twelve nodal regions, doubled
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in width, growing leaves too numerous to count and flowering the weekend
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before the twenty-sixth! On March nineteenth, the top of the plant split and
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began to grow multiple branches laterally upward. These new branches quickly
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accelerated in growth, and were growing faster than the original shoot. Now
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that is a busy little plant! By April eleventh, the plant had grown to a
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final height of fifty-four centimeters, a width of thirty-four centimeters,
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producing over forty nodal regions, and growing new flowers almost every week.
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Considering the probable life span of this type of plant, that would be like a
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human being born and growing to five and a half feet tall in less than a year!
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On April fourth, something small and green began to grow out of one of the
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fully developed flowers. This continued to grow, and now, exactly three weeks
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later is fully seven and a half centimeters long. The plant has produced
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eight peppers thus far and all are growing just as rapidly as the first,
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though none yet have ripened to the point that they can be harvested. In
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almost all aspects, the plant's growth started slowly and increased in speed
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towards maturity.
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Now, after taking over three months of lectures and labs concerning
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botany, what can I tell you about my cayenne pepper plant based mainly on
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observations? First, the plant is a vascular plant. This is easy to tell
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since the plant grew more than two centimeters tall! That leaves several
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types of vascular plants still to choose from. Since the plant flowered, then
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it is easily classified as an angiosperm, or a flowering plant. Now, the
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major question left is monocot or dicot. It would be possible to learn this
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information by cutting the plant open and examining a cross-section of either
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the roots, stem, or leaves. However, that would make growing the plant a moot
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point, since it would kill the plant. So, there are other ways to identify
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the plant. The first available clue was the leaves. Monocot leaves always
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have parallel veins running from the base of the leaf to the tip. The veins
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of a dicot leaf have more complex patterns called pinnate and palmate. This
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kind of venation looks like continuous branching and spider webbing. Since
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the leaves of this plant had branching veins, then the plant is a dicot. If
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that were not enough to be sure, then when the plant began to flower, all
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doubt would evaporate. The flowers were fairly small, white, and had five
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obviously visible petals. Monocots have flower parts in multiples of three,
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while dicots have flower parts in multiples of four or five. If we were to
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pull the plant up and slice and dice it, we would find other characteristics
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of a dicot plant. In the stem, the vascular bundle, (that which contains the
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xylem and phloem vessels) would be arranged in a ring as opposed to randomly
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scattered. In the root, the stele (containing certain vascular bundles) would
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be star-shaped. Examine the root system of our dicot plant, and you would
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discover a large main root called a taproot, where a monocot has a fibrous
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root system. There are even a few subtle differences in the leaves that
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require a microscope to identify.
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What else could be learned from observation of our pet plant? The cayenne
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plant is native to tropical areas, so the plant would wither easily if not
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watered frequently. Of the plants in our section, the plants towards the back
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of the table had a tendency to grow higher to reach the sun, a product of
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positive phototropism. Hormones produced in one part of the plant would
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gather on the shaded side of the stem. If the entire stem was shaded, then
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the stem would grow straight up. However, when the stem reached light of some
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kind, then auxin would gather only on side of the stem, the shaded side. The
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auxin promoted growth on that side by loosening the cell wall of cells on the
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shaded side of the stem. In layman's terms, the stem would bend towards the
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light. Our plants did not exhibit any other major tropisms that we could see.
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However, we should assume that the roots system would exhibit positive
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gravitropism, or growth towards gravity, as most roots do.
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Photoperiodism refers to the plants tendency to flower only when the day
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is short or only when the day is long. This was somewhat more difficult to
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observe, since the lighting environment was not so closely controlled, and
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I had no way of checking on whether or not the plants night was broken up by
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any flashes of light. Since photoperiodism is affected by the length of the
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night and not the length of the day, any flash of light at night would cause
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the plant to think it was a short night and a long day. In spite of this, a
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guess can be made. Since the plant did not begin to flower until late March,
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then one would be inclined to guess that the plant was a long day plant. This
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would only be a guess however, since too many other variables are involved.
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Other facts about the plant were learned in reading, but the purpose of
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the experiment was to improve observation skills and to see what could be
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learned through observational skills alone. Therefore, almost all facts
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contained in this report reflect what was learned through simply watching the
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plant grow and recording and monitoring the plants progress. We were able to
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correctly identify exactly what kind of plant the pepper belonged to simply
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from studying parts of the plants anatomy. We were able to learn about the
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plants growth from the plants reaction to light and the other plants around
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it. We learned what conditions the plant preferred when withering occurred
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after insufficient watering. We learned what materials were successful in
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aiding in the growth of the plant, and we learned the value of a greenhouse in
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controlling the environment of the plant and therefore eliminating as many
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unknown variables as possible. In this case then, the objective was
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successful.
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[Fine, this is a report from a botany class. Kiss my ass.]
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--- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- ---
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Issue#106 of "GwD: The American Dream with a Twist -- of Lime" ISSN 1523-1585
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copyright (c) MMI Priest/GwD Publications /---------------\
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copyright (c) MMI GwD, Inc. All rights reserved. :SUPREME BEINGS.:
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a production of The GREENY world DOMINATION Task Force, Inc. : GwD :
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Postal: GwD, Inc. - P.O. Box 16038 - Lubbock, Texas 79490 \---------------/
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FYM -+- http://www.GREENY.org/ - editor@GREENY.org - submit@GREENY.org -+- FYM
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