Food for Noah's Ark survivors.

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A: One easy way to replicate perennial plants is to take root cuttings. Simply pull a piece of the root up and clip it off. (This won't hurt the parent plant since it's sufficiently large and well established). Cut the root into two- or three-inch pieces. Each piece will become a duplicate of the parent plant.

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http://www.hgtv.com/...icle/0,1785,HGTV_3610_1371784,00.html

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You'll find this bit of nonsense in several creationists texts including Woodemorappe's Noah's Ark a Feasibility Study as an explanation for the regrowth of forests. I have planted a lot of trees this way and my father has literally planted thousands. You have about 2 weeks after tree cuttings are made to get them planted or they won't take. Also you to poke them into soft soil or dig small holes and then put the cut ends into the ground so that the cutting stand up. You can't just throw them on the ground and expect them to grow, they won't. The idea that branches that had been swirling around for months in a global flood could then end up reforesting the earth is absurd.Randy

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CreationWiki sources their info from here:
Woodmorappe, John, 1996. Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study. Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, pp. 153-162

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It would take many pages of threads to discuss the nonsense in that book, but is is clear that Woodmorappe is often writing about thing of which he has no personal experience and his claims about plant regrowth is one of them.

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Many terrestrial seeds can survive long periods of soaking in various concentrations of saltwater (Howe, 1968, CRSQ:105-112). Indeed, saltwater impedes the germination of some species so that the seed lasts better in saltwater than freshwater. Other plants could have survived in floating vegetation masses, or on pumice from the volcanic activity. Pieces of many plants are capable of asexual sprouting.
Many plants could have survived as planned food stores on the Ark, or accidental inclusions in such food stores. Many seeds have devices for attaching themselves to animals, and some could have survived the Flood by this means. Others could have survived in the stomachs of the
bloated, floating carcasses of dead herbivores.

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The olive leaf brought back to Noah by the dove (Gen. 8:11) shows that plants were regenerating well before Noah and company left the Ark.

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This is a classic example of one of YEC's favorite logical fallacies, the fallacy of hasty generalization. The fact that the seeds of some plants can survive some time in water does not mean that enough plants could have survived the flood to repopulate the earth's ecosystem. But this is an easy thing to test. Why not take a wide variety of plant seeds and some plant cuttings and swirl them around in salty water for several months and then throw them onto some ground that has been under salty water for a few months and see what grows. I think I know why "Creation Scientists" will not do that experiment.Another problem is that there wouldn't be much topsoil in many places after the flood supposedly rearranged all the world's geology.Of course one wonders how insect pollinated plants could have prospered with all or a least most insect species wiped out by the flood.Randy