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January 18, 2011
· Boll weevil’s last stand in south Texas
· US ag exports look strong again in 2012
· Green pesticide works against citrus pest
· Big appetite forces China to look abroad
· John Deere goes to war building battle gear
Boll weevil’s last stand in south Texas
(The Brownsville Herald) – Perhaps it’s fitting that the boll weevil’s last stand is taking place in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, since it was here — near Brownsville — in the 1890s that a little pest with a big appetite first crossed into the continental United States from Mexico.
The bug is now on its last legs, thanks to a sustained, coordinated boll weevil eradication program overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture but aggressively prosecuted on the ground by state and local weevil fighters.
he Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation is divided into
16 zones, with
Brad Cowan, a Texas AgriLife Extension Service agent whose job description includes teaching growers how to grow cotton, said the boll weevil has been public enemy No. 1 for cotton growers for a long, long time.
ot native to the
Cotton plants don’t stand a chance against the boll weevil, a type of beetle that lays its eggs inside a reproductive part of the cotton plant called the "square." The square falls off and there is no possibility of flowers, bolls or fluffy cotton, Cowan said.
"When the weevils are heavy you can literally have a plant devoid of fluff," he said.
In the old days, boll weevils were so bad you either sprayed insecticide or you didn’t have a cotton crop, Cowan said. Now the critters are becoming scarcer and scarcer.
The figure would have been higher had the
The average long-term figure is 250,000 acres, he said.
"Now we’re having a hard time finding boll weevils in
cotton and it’s really neat," Cowan said. "A lot of
A few are still showing up in boll weevil traps — the lime green canisters on a stick that line every cotton field — but nothing compared to what it used to be. The traps are strictly for monitoring purposes, Cowan notes, while control comes in the form of aggressive spraying.
The poison of choice is usually Malathion, considered to have relatively low toxicity to humans, Cowan said. It’s vital that every cotton field is monitored and every discovery of boll weevils dealt with decisively, he said.
"If there’s a field out there somewhere that is not being monitored and sprayed properly, they can spread out to other fields and it harms everybody," Cowan said.
Before area-wide coordination, growers voluntarily sprayed their own fields on their own schedules, with no discernable effect on the general boll weevil population.
Though eradication efforts began in the Southeast in the
late 1970s, the
A combination of poorly timed spraying and an outbreak of worms led to widespread crop failure that year, Cowan said, and disgusted Valley growers voted themselves out of the program.
In 2005, however, encouraged by eradication successes elsewhere in the state and the Southeast, the growers voted themselves back in. The rest is that the boll weevil is almost history.
"It convinced our guys that it could be done here," Cowan said. "It just needed to be managed in a different way."
In addition to spraying, by law cotton can only be in the fields certain times during the year.
Once it’s harvested in the fall, cotton plants must be destroyed and fields free of cotton until spring planting. This prevents the weevil from overwintering. Wallace noted that the 2010 crop was virtually free of boll weevil damage.
"Last year was the first year essentially that we had no damage to cotton," he said. "A lot of people couldn’t even find them all year. There were some hot spots along the river."
Wallace said that the pest has already been wiped out in most of the country.
"
While
"No question, it’s a historic achievement," he said.
US ag exports look strong again in 2012
(Chicago Tribune) – The export market for agricultural commodities should remain strong this year, though likely not quite as robust as record-setting 2011, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday.
The nation exported $137.4 billion in agricultural products in fiscal 2011, up $22 billion from the previous year, Vilsack said during a meeting with the Chicago Tribune's editorial board. This led to an agricultural trade surplus of $42 billion, he said.
Clearly high commodities prices contributed to the surge,
but Vilsack expects continued strength this year, in spite of a likely increase
in competition from Latin America and
"I don't know if we'll top the record year, but it'll probably be the second- or third-best record we've ever had," he said.
"I don't see us seeing significant declines in
commodities prices because I think we'll see continued demand from the export
market and from new markets being created in the
Demand for corn will remain strong, he said, in part due to the growth of the middle class around the world.
One food analyst agreed that demand for food commodities should remain strong, but noted the nation's competitiveness against rival exporters such as Canada and Brazil will depend on whether the dollar strengthens relative to those countries' currencies.
"We are in a long-term, 10- to 20-year period of structural inflation in food costs, and if there is a period of correction, it will not be due to oversupply, but to a strengthening of the U.S. dollar," said Jonathan Feeney, senior food and beverage analyst with Janney Capital Markets.
Green pesticide works against citrus pest
(lPHYSORG.com)
–
The Lime Swallowtail, or Citrus Swallowtail, is a well-known
agricultural pest from southern Asia discovered in the Caribbean in 2006, and
researchers say its potential impact on the
"Everything that's in the Caribbean eventually gets to
Experiments conducted on the UF campus at the Florida Museum
of Natural History's
Because the Lime Swallowtail, Princeps (Papilio) demoleus,
is invasive and cannot be legally brought into the
"Its effectiveness is based on the biochemistry of the insect gut, so although this work was done on a surrogate, the methionine will block the ion channel in the same way," Lewis said.
Methionine is needed in the human diet for many reasons, including protein-building and metabolism. It is environmentally safe and harmless to citrus plants, mammals and birds.
"It's a very curious phenomenon to have this nutrient amino acid that humans can't live without, yet at the concentrations we put on the leaves, it is toxic to crop-destructive caterpillars," said study co-author Bruce Stevens, professor of physiology and functional genomics in the UF College of Medicine. "It's a completely different class of pesticides that has not been seen before – most are toxic to not only the pest, but to people and animals, too."
Stevens first discovered the pesticide properties of methionine while cloning genes that regulate amino acid metabolism in 1998. Working with co-author James Cuda of UF's department of entomology and nematology, Stevens later found this amino acid to be effective against yellow fever mosquito larvae, tomato hornworm and Colorado potato beetle.
Methionine disrupts an ion channel that controls nutrient absorption in larvae with an alkaline intestine, such as in caterpillars of the Citrus Swallowtail. In 2004 and 2007, Stevens obtained two patents for the use of methionine as a pesticide, through the UF Office of Technology Licensing.
"The methionine is sprayed on the leaves, and when the caterpillars begin to eat the leaves, they ingest the compound – it's not in the plant itself," Lewis said. "Once they take those first few bites, they don't feed again and remain stationary until they die."
Methionine is low-cost and serves as fertilizer if it reaches the ground because it's a biodegradable nitrogen source, Stevens said. The amino acid is mass produced and has been used as a nutritional supplement in outdoor livestock feed since the 1960s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently approved the use of methionine for organic poultry production.
"This is a neat idea and I'm hoping that more work will
be done on this in the future because there's a lot of potential there,"
said John Ruberson, a professor in the entomology department at the
Patent rights for the use of methionine to control turf and ornamental pests have been licensed to Phoenix Environmental Care LLC, which is developing a pest control product.
While researchers are unsure how the Lime Swallowtail
reached the
"We suspect someone could have brought them to release
the adult butterflies in weddings, or perhaps they arrived with imported citrus
stock," Lewis said. "Regardless, it's in the
Big appetite forces China
(brisbanetimes.com.au) – About 8000 square kilometres of farmland around the world are now in Chinese hands, Chinese current affairs magazine Phoenix Weekly reports.
State-owned and private Chinese companies have been active
in acquiring land around the world, snapping up everything from palm oil
plantations in
The rapid expansion of Chinese investment activities has
unnerved politicians from
Helping drive the overseas push is the Chinese government's
concern for food security. One of the government's proudest achievements is
being able to feed its 1.3 billion citizens: it has boasted repeatedly that it
is a miracle that
That claim is increasingly being tested by the steady
erosion of arable land in
Chen Guoqiang, a senior research fellow with the Development
Research Centre of State Council, which is affiliated with the Chinese cabinet,
told a forum in
The shrinking supply of arable land led Agriculture Minister Han Changfu to declare in December that time and conditions were ripe for Chinese agribusiness to seek opportunities abroad.
In a joint communique last year, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce said the government encouraged and supported businesses investing abroad. Individual companies can claim up to 30 million yuan ($A5 million) a year in subsidies from the government.
The government also offers ''soft loans'' at below market
rates to companies through its policy banks such as the Export-Import Bank of
An economist from the China Investment Corporation, Ma Yo, told the Chinese press that the government could offer up to $15 million in direct support and subsidised loans for a $1 billion investment project.
The investment trend is likely to accelerate as
The newly appointed chairman of the Securities Regulatory
Commission, Gu Shuqi, said at a recent International Finance Forum in
John Deere goes to war building battle gear
(FoxNews.com) – John Deere has gone to war.
You might be surprised to learn that the green-tractor and -mower company makes a wide range of products, including some remarkably cool military gear.
The company isn't alone: Here are three top American brands
that have been quietly taking know-how honed from years of experience on
Gators Go to War
John Deere, the classic go-to for American farmers and backyard enthusiasts, supports soldiers in the war zone as well.
Revealed to the public for the first time in September, John
Deere’s R-Gator Assisted Carriage System developed with Boeing Defence
Engineered to lighten the load of the dismounted soldier and therefore increase maneuverability, the R-Gator ACS exploits the obstacle avoidance as well as precision navigation and guidance technology John Deere evolved through more than twenty years of agriculture experience. It can detect obstacles up to about 65 feet away with two forward laser range sensors that are reinforced by one rear-looking sensor.
The R-Gator ACS can be driven manually or autonomously through rough terrain with an easy to use controller ripped straight from a game console. It can carry approximately 1,400 pounds of equipment -- useful for both extended operations as well as for reducing the load for the individual soldier.
Militarized Golf Carts
Snowmobiles, motorcycles and "neighborhood vehicles" (you might just call them golf carts) are the bread and butter of power sport provider Polaris.
And with more than 3,000 military vehicles already fielded in theatre, Polaris has a surprising second business: Take the Polaris MV700 -- a souped-up golf cart at heart -- that can be air-dropped into a hot zone.
Last week, Polaris was granted a $54 million contract from
the U.S. Army to provide these vehicles, spare parts and trailers for Iraqi and
Afghan security forces as well as the
Side by sides, small off road vehicles long popular with rangers, have plenty of practical application for the war zone. Top pick of the litter is the militarized version of the Polaris Ranger Razor. Available in "Desert Tan," the controls are similar to a road vehicle but built for off roading.
Kitted out for tactical operations, the Polaris Razor has keyless ignition and "blackout" capability (so that during an operation, the lights can be switched off). With a 800cc four-stroke engine, it can carry two soldiers and reach 68 mph -- and tow around 1,500 pounds.
From Sports to War
Oakley is a go brand to for athletes, but it also equips warfighters. The Standard Issue range, not available in retail stores, focuses on users from the military through to the FBI and Secret Service and covers the range from eyewear and through to gloves. The stand-outs are their goggles, boots and shades.
On the shades front, the Oakley Standard Issue surpasses
The company also makes goggles tailored for war zones: They protect from laser light, sand, dust and water. Oakley protects the toes too, with its Land Sea Air Water Boot known as the LSA.
Many boots are mere puddle-hoppers not up to the full submersion that may be required for special ops; conventional waterproofing can retain the inevitable water that crept in during submersion.
The LSA Water Boot has excellent traction on challenging flat wet surfaces and uneven ones. It can be worn with swim fins and is cleverly designed to rapidly drain water and to dry quickly. The “Eva” footbed has holes to allow rapid drainage while the midsole is designed with drainage pillars.
An implicit bonus to rapid draining and drying? Fewer footprints for increased stealth.
Ballet dancer turned
defense specialist Allison Barrie has travelled around the world covering the
military, terrorism, weapons advancements and life on the front line. You can
reach her at wargames@foxnews.com or follow her on Twitter @Allison_Barrie
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