Hey, everybody.

Hey, everybody. This is Ellen Weatherford. I'm back again with another episode of Just the Zoo of Us, your favorite animal review podcast. And this week, we have a good friend that's been with us for a while. This is Dr. Vikram Beliga. Say hi. Hello, everyone. By the way, I'm so excited about this. I'm so excited. This is the crossover. Well, so I won't say the crossover event of this century because we have collaborated before. Last year, I came onto your podcast, Planthropology, which was a delightful time. It was really fun. So that's a little bit of a spoiler alert. Vickram is the artist behind Planthropology. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about your podcast?

Yeah, sure. So I'm, you know, general plant nerd guy. I started the show Plantthropology just because I was having a nerdy plant conversation with a friend one day. And I was like, this should be a podcast. And we both laughed about it because we were like,

nobody cares about plants that much. And then it wouldn't go away, you know, it's stuck in my brain.

So I talked to plant people, nature people in general, just about like what they do, why they like

to do what they do, what they studied, how they got there. And so like it's a science show, but we

don't necessarily, like,

we talk about science, but the main point is actually more of the people that are studying the things. And so, like, we kind of get some science along the way, but it's been a lot of fun to do. I think, uh, I, the best compliment I get from people sometimes is like, I didn't know I cared about plants.

And then after that, I'm like is like, I didn't know I cared about plants.

And then after that, I'm like, good, I have done my job.

It's humanizing too, I feel like.

Plants are so far removed from humans on the tree of life that it can be really difficult for you to like relate to plants.

Yeah.

And that's kind of the point.

Like, you know, it's almost like we're too used to plants. I say this from current personal experience. If your kid has like a pile of Legos on the floor somewhere and it's in a place where you don't step on it, you walk by it every day and you just stop noticing it, right? It just after a while, at least for me, it just goes away. And it's like, I think we always see plants in the background, you know, there's a tree in your yard, you've got some grass, you've got like a park. But like kind of like you were saying, they're so alien to us, like the way they work and all of that kind of stuff that I think it's a good like gateway into this whole other part of science and biology that is like crucial

to our lives that most people just don't ever think about. So yeah, being able to talk to all the

nerds out there that like devote their lives to these things. Like you said, it kind of humanizes

it and it gives people sort of an end. So tell me a little bit about the work that you do with plants

and how you got into this work in this research. So tell me a little bit about the work that you do with plants and how you got into this work

in this research. So I am a PhD in horticulture and most of my research and most of my work has been in

water conservation. I studied landscape design of my bachelor's. I was, I studied olive trees for my masters and then turf grass kind of for my PhD.

But really like most of my work has been, okay, I live in a part of the country that's very dry.

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