January 22, 2008, 11:04 PM CT

Storing on Svalbard Global Seed Vault

At the end of January, more than 200,000 crop varieties from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East-drawn from vast seed collections maintained by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)-will be shipped to a remote island near the Arctic Circle, where they will be stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), a facility capable of preserving their vitality for thousands of years.

The cornucopia of rice, wheat, beans, sorghum, sweet potatoes, lentils, chick peas and a host of other food, forage and agroforestry plants is to be safeguarded in the facility, which was created as a repository of last resort for humanity's agricultural heritage. The seeds will be shipped to the village of Longyearbyen on Norway's Svalbard archipelago, where the vault has been constructed on a mountain deep inside the Arctic permafrost.

The vault was built by the Norwegian government as a service to the global community, and a Rome-based international NGO, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, will fund its operation. The vault will open on February 26, 2008.

This first installment from the CGIAR collections will contain duplicates from international agricultural research centers based in Benin, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines and Syria. Collectively, the CGIAR centers maintain 600,000 plant varieties in crop genebanks, which are widely viewed as the foundation of global efforts to conserve agricultural biodiversity......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

January 17, 2008, 8:45 PM CT

High-Vitamin Corn Could Improve Nutrition

Researchers have developed a potentially powerful new tool in the fight against deficiencies in dietary vitamin A, which cause eye diseases, including blindness, in 40 million children annually, and increased health risks for about 250 million people, mostly in developing countries.

This tool consists of "a new method of analyzing the genetic makeup of corn that will enable developing countries to identify and increase cultivation of corn that has naturally high levels of vitamin A precursors," says Ed Buckler, a co-leader of the research team from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service and Cornell University.

Corn is an essential part of the diets of hundreds of millions of people around the world, a number of of whom live in developing countries. Regular consumption by adults and children of adequate quantities of corn high in vitamin A precursors, which are converted in the human body into vitamin A, would reduce their chances of developing vitamin A deficiencies and associated health problems.

This new method of increasing cultivation of high-vitamin corn is designed to tap the natural genetic diversity of corn. It was developed by a team led by Buckler and Torbert Rocheford of the University of Illinois, and was partially funded by The National Science Foundation (NSF). It will be described in the January 18, 2007 edition of Science......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

January 14, 2008, 4:59 PM CT

Unlocking tree genetics

UBC scientists have discovered some of the genetic secrets that enable pine and spruce trees to fight off pests and disease, uncovering critical new information about forests natural defense systems.

Assoc. Prof. Joerg Bohlmann says this genetic analysis will allow forest stewardship programs to reinforce a forests inherent strength, breeding trees that could in time repel insects such as British Columbias notorious mountain pine beetles.

Bohlmann and his research associate Christopher Keeling explored the genetic makeup of oleoresin within spruce, discovering a sophisticated ability to produce complex blends of chemicals that continuously evolve to protect the tree from changing conditions and challenges.

Conifers are some of the oldest and longest living plants on the planet, says Bohlmann. Weve opened the book to understanding how they can survive in one location for thousands of years despite attacks from generations of insects and diseases.

Their study examines the molecular biochemistry of conifers interacting with genomes of bark beetles and bark beetle-associated fungal pathogens. Bohlmanns study appears in todays edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Figuring out how these naturally occurring defenses work has important implications for the long-term sustainability and health of our forests, says Bohlmann, whos working with the B.C. Ministry of Forests and Range, the forestry industry and the Canadian Forest Service......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:01:37 GMT

Tulipa hybrid

From last April, this is another unnamed errant tulip growing amongst the Tulipa ''Zurel''. I much preferred visiting the fields where these occasional oddballs would show up; fields of tulips that were perfect felt too managed. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

January 8, 2008, 8:35 PM CT

Newly Patented Purplish 'Lily' Blooms All Summer Long

Mauve Majesty is one cool lily look-alike. This new pinkish-purple ornamental flower, just patented by Cornell, can last for two weeks in a vase, but when left in the garden, it blooms all summer long in the cooler, northern states until the first hard freeze in the fall.

The new hybrid of the Inca lily (Alstroemeria), which was developed by a Cornell professor, is a non-fragrant perennial that is set apart by its lavender-lilac flower color (which is adorned with dark speckling and a creamy yellow throat), its strong, upright flower stems and its winter hardiness. In greenhouses, the new hybrid never goes dormant and grows year-round.

Developed by Mark Bridgen, Cornell professor of horticulture and director of the Department of Horticulture's Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center, the hybrid is the first ornamental plant patented by Cornell, as per Richard Cahoon, associate director of Patents and Technology at Cornell's Technology Transfer Office.

It is also one of the first in its color class to be hardy to zone 6 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zone Map (coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and northern New Jersey and much of the Midwest) and often to a number of parts of the cooler zone 5 (which includes western Massachusetts, mid-state New York, northern Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, much of Michigan, southern Iowa and Nebraska, northern Missouri and Kansas, and eastern Colorado)......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

January 7, 2008, 11:13 PM CT

No convincing evidence for decline in tropical forests

Claims that tropical forests are declining cannot be backed up by hard evidence, as per new research from the University of Leeds.

This major challenge to conventional thinking is the surprising finding of a study published recently in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences by Dr Alan Grainger, Senior Lecturer in Geography and one of the world's leading experts on tropical deforestation.

"Every few years we get a new estimate of the annual rate of tropical deforestation, said Dr Grainger. They always seem to show that these marvellous forests have only a short time left. Unfortunately, everybody assumes that deforestation is happening and fails to look at the bigger picture what is happening to forest area as a whole.

In the first attempt for a number of years to chart the long-term trend in tropical forest area,.

he spent more than three years going through all available United Nations data with a fine toothcomb and found some serious problems.

The errors and inconsistencies I have discovered in the area data raise too a number of questions to provide convincing support for the accepted picture of tropical forest decline over the last 40 years, he said. Researchers all over the world who have used these data to make predictions of species extinctions and the role of forests in global climate change will find it helpful to revisit their findings in the light of my study......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:06:23 GMT

Organic produce must-haves

I interrupt my fall field trip adventures to direct your attention to a really helpful article article in the latest Delicious Living magazine that discusses what products or product ingredients that you should buy organically if all possible. The article goes beyond the usual health reasons and explores the environmental reasons for buying organic as well

The 9 most important products to buy organically are milk, beef, apples, potatoes, ketchup, corn, soy, cotton, and berries. The author, Susan Enfield Esrey, decodes the politics of the organic milk purchase:

Whenever you buy organic milk, you’re casting a powerful vote to help transform an entire agricultural system. Organic cows eat organic feed and graze on pasture during the growing season. Voilá, you just reduced the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on millions of acres of worldwide farmland dedicated to growing livestock feed.

Beef is in the same category:

Like organic dairy, buying organic beef helps change a whole system and an inefficient one at that. To add just 1 pound of cattle weight, it takes about 7 pounds of corn (according to the late food geographer Georg Borgstrom) and nearly 2,500 gallons of water, per a widely cited report from Sacramento’s Water Education Foundation. Eliminating pesticides-as well as overused antibiotics-from that equation is a smart beginning.

Berries, apples, and potatoes retain high levels of pesticide residues in or on the fruit; soy, corn, and cotton are major GMO crops and a major source of pesticide pollution. It’ll really make you think before buying a conventional apple again. (That is, if it doesn’t make you gag and/or infuriate you to imagine how greedy corporations are that they poison us for their profit, but aaaanyway.)

The best part is a short sidebar that you can cut out and take with you to the grocery store. You’ll learn the “Dirty Dozen” (highest level of pesticide residues) and the “Cleanest Twelve” (lowest), so that it’s easier to shop when you can’t buy organic everything (for cost or because they don’t carry an organic version of the product). Here they are for your reference:

Dirty Dozen (highest levels of pesticide residues)
Peaches
Apples
Sweet bell peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Pears
Grapes (imported)
Spinach
Lettuce
Potatoes

Cleanest Twelve (lowest levels of pesticide residues)
Onions
Avocados
Sweet corn (frozen)
Pineapples
Mangoes
Asparagus
Sweet peas (frozen)
Kiwifruit
Bananas
Cabbage
Broccoli

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia. Posted by: Caroline Brown      Read more     Source

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:58:32 GMT

International Year Of The Potato

2008 Is the International Year of the Potato. The potato has been consumed in the Andes for about 8,000 years. Taken by the Spanish to Europe in the 16th century, it quickly spread across the globe.

Today potatoes are grown on an estimated 75,000 square miles of farmland, from China''s Yunnan plateau and the subtropical lowlands of India, to Java''s equatorial highlands and the steppes of Ukraine. In terms of sheer quantity harvested, the humble potato tuber is the world''s No. 4 food crop, with production in 2006 of almost 347 million tons.

(via escape) Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

December 20, 2007, 9:20 PM CT

Abstinence by Mutual Consent

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered a gene in plants that disrupts fertilization only when mutations in the gene are present in both the female and male reproductive cells.

Their discovery, detailed in a paper that appears online today in the journal Current Biology, has been named the "abstinence by mutual consent" mutation because of its unusual properties.

"Mutations that do not allow fertilization are known in plants, but usually these mutations are caused either by a mutation in the female reproductive cells or by a mutation in the male reproductive cells," said Julian Schroeder, a professor of biological sciences at UCSD who headed the study. "In this gene, when only the female carries the mutation, completely normal fertilization occurs, and when only the male carries the mutation, fertilization also occurs. But fertilization is completely disrupted when both male and female reproductive cells carry the mutation simultaneously."

The scientists say the discovery of new genes that control the ability of plants to undergo fertilization could have important applications to plant breeders and conservationists.

"Mutations that cause infertility in crops can provide a powerful tool for breeders who would like to avoid crossing of their plants to related species," said Aurelien Boisson-Dernier, a postdoctoral scholar in Schroeder's UCSD laboratory and the first author of the study. "Conversely breeders would at times like to breed crops by crossing them into distantly related species that however do not allow crossing due to infertility. For example, adding beneficial stress resistance genes from another species may not be possible if the male and female reproductive cells can't communicate properly. Understanding the mechanisms that mediate male-female communication during fertilization could help in circumventing the barrier of such interspecies crosses for breeding new varieties"......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:14:54 GMT

Scutellaria baicalensis

These photographs were originally slated to appear in August when the images were made, but after attempting to verify the identification of the plants, I discovered they weren''t the species suggested by the label. The labeling error has since been corrected and I''ve updated the names on the previous photographs I''ve taken.

Scutellaria baicalensis is known as Baikal skullcap or Chinese skullcap, reflecting on its east Asian native range: Korea, China, Mongolia, Sibera, and the far east of Russia. It is one of the fifty fundamental herbs of Chinese herbology, a fact also noted by the Plants for a Future database. The New York University Medical Center reports on the current state of Baikal skullcap flavonoid extracts in Western medicine: “Highly preliminary evidence suggest that baicalin can enhance the activity of antibiotics against antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria. Other highly preliminary evidence suggests that baicalin, wogonin, and baicalein may have anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, liver-protective, anti-anxiety, and antihypertensive effects. However, for none of these uses does the evidence approach the level necessary to truly establish a treatment as effective”.

Due to the potential medicinal uses, discussion papers have been made about the possibility of this and other members of the genus Scutellaria becoming a medicinal crop. A similar evaluation of the use of skullcap has been published by the Saskatchewan Crop Development Branch.

Whatever the medicinal uses and crop potentials, I find myself enjoying it for its ornamental virtues: long-lasting purple flowers on up-curved stems with bright-green foliage. It grows in a tidy clump in the Alpine Garden, flowering late in the summer. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source