" I heard it through the AgLine"

July 1, 2010

 

 

·        Soil study aims for climate insights

·        Genetic solutions for legume problems

·        Pumpkin growers battle a scary foe

·        Food dyes may cause health problems

·        Healthy potatoes are almost organic

 

 

Soil study aims for climate insights

 

(University of Michigan via RedAlert.com) – ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A new $26-million NASA project led by a University of Michigan researcher aims to help clarify how ecosystems exchange carbon with the atmosphere, an important piece of missing knowledge in the quest to understand, predict, and adapt to climate change.

 

The project's goal is to help determine whether the North American continent is a net source or sink of carbon. Researchers from U-M, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Harvard University, MIT, Oregon State University, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Purdue University are taking part.

 

Over the next five years, a radar instrument called the Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface (AirMOSS) will collect data in nine North American regions from aboard a Gulfstream-III aircraft. The radar data will be converted to measurements of soil moisture by using sophisticated computer simulations. The radar, to be built during the first year-and-a-half of the project, generates signals that can penetrate up to four feet beneath the ground surface. This state-of-the-art low-frequency radar will be the most compact and versatile radar of its kind built to-date, says principal investigator Mahta Moghaddam, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

 

Root-zone soil moisture levels directly affect how well a plant is functioning.

 

"Even your houseplant has its own net exchange of carbon," Moghaddam said. "It takes carbon dioxide in during the day through photosynthesis, provided there is sunlight and it's warm enough. And breathes out some carbon dioxide at night. How much net carbon it sequesters, and therefore how much the plant grows, has to do with how much water is available to its roots: No water, no growth."

 

Scientists don't understand exactly when and where this net carbon exchange process is most efficient, or how much the net exchange differs across ecosystems. They might know it for a few selected locations across North America where they have manually sampled, but not on the large scale that AirMOSS will enable. Lack of current knowledge about root zone soil moisture is believed to contribute 60-80 percent of the uncertainty about how much the ecosystems exchange carbon with the atmosphere.

 

Collaborating researchers will incorporate Moghaddam's root zone soil moisture measurements into hydrology and ecosystem models to produce a continental estimate of the net ecosystem exchange. The results, which will show whether the continent takes in or releases more carbon and by how much, are expected by May 2015.

 

Moghaddam will oversee the design and fabrication of the AirMOSS instrument, a table-top-sized, high-powered, low-frequency radar that NASA/JPL collaborators will build for the project. She has also developed computational techniques to analyze the signals it sends back. Moghaddam's research group is a leader in developing radar algorithms for subsurface characterization.

 

"This work will help us understand a piece of the carbon cycle puzzle," Moghaddam said. "We may know that different areas in north America act as sinks or sources of carbon, but we don't know how large the net carbon exchange is, how fast it's changing, or how big it's going to get. Today, we rely on model estimates and there is huge uncertainty."

 

Beyond this project, Moghaddam envisions other applications for this radar instrument, including surveillance and resource exploration.

 

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Genetic solutions for legume problems

 

(USDA-ARS) The common bean—which includes pinto, great northern, navy, black, kidney, and snap beans—is considered by many nutritionists to be a nearly perfect food because of its high protein content and low cost. But it is also susceptible to many diseases that reduce seed and pod quality and yields. Agricultural Research Service scientists from labs across the United States are playing major roles in finding solutions to what ails these legumes.

 

Beltsville Beans Key to Combating Devastating Rust Pathogen

 

ARS plant pathologist Talo Pastor-Corrales, throughout his career, has traveled to 21 countries in the Americas and 11 in Africa studying bean diseases and searching for bean varieties that contain special traits—particularly disease resistance—that could be used to improve common beans. In the Soybean Genomics and Improvement Research Unit in Beltsville, Maryland, Pastor-Corrales specializes in genetic resistance of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) to various diseases.

 

He’s also the lead scientist in a project that aims to discover and breed genes into P. vulgaris for resistance to common bean rust and the newly arrived Asian soybean rust pathogen, which also infects the common bean.

 

The fungus that causes bean rust is very aggressive and exists as many different strains called “races.” Pastor-Corrales says, “When new races appear, they can infect bean varieties that were previously resistant to rust.” Further complicating matters is the fact that races present in a field can vary from one year to another.

 

Of major concern is the loss of effectiveness of the Ur-3 rust-resistance gene in beans, which has been very effective in controlling bean rust in the United States, especially in North Dakota and Michigan, the two largest producers of dry beans in the United States. In recent years, however, rust has developed on these once-rust-resistant bean varieties, and there is concern that the new races will spread to other Northern Plains states, such as Colorado and Nebraska.

 

In 2008 and 2009, Pastor-Corrales and his project team were credited with developing new dry bean cultivars resistant to the rust pathogen. Pastor-Corrales collaborated with scientists from the University of Nebraska and Colorado State University. The new cultivars contain two or more rust-resistance genes and most also have the Ur-11 gene, considered the most effective rust-resistance gene in the world.

 

Beans That Can Take the Heat

 

At test plots in southern Puerto Rico, ARS plant geneticist Tim Porch’s beans are feeling the heat. As part of collaborative breeding efforts with Cornell University, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Puerto Rico, Porch and colleagues have been testing new bean germplasm for heat and drought tolerance and disease resistance. So far, their efforts have proved fruitful.

 

Porch is in the process of releasing two new kidney bean varieties with heat tolerance. These germplasm releases, named “TARS HT-1” and “TARS HT-2,” were initiated by ARS plant geneticist Rusty Smith, now with the ARS laboratory in Stoneville, Mississippi. TARS HT-1 does well under the stress of high day and high night temperatures, whereas TARS HT-2 does well under the stress of high day and moderate night temperatures.

 

Also in the works is new black bean germplasm with heat and drought tolerance and resistance to common bacterial blight, a seedborne disease—spread by splashed water—that mainly attacks the plant’s leaves and pods. Porch crossed tropical black and red beans to produce these germplasm lines, which are adapted to temperate areas and will help to increase the diversity of U.S. bean germplasm. Field tests in Nebraska show that the lines yield well in addition to having tolerance to heat, drought, and disease.

 

“The beans we are testing have broad adaptation,” says Porch, who is with ARS’s Tropical Agriculture Research Station (TARS) in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. “Our lines do well in the short days common to Puerto Rico and the long days found in Nebraska.” Porch is testing other bean types—red, pinto, great northern, and navy—that are drought tolerant, and some also have heat tolerance and disease resistance. “My goal is to pyramid multiple resistances to generate lines with broad adaptation and genetic diversity.”

 

Porch is also involved in bean-improvement efforts in Angola, a country that is beginning to recover from many years of civil war. The project, funded by USAID and led by the University of Puerto Rico, supports Angola’s common bean breeding program. Porch and university colleagues conduct breeding and pathology training sessions, host Angolan scientists to train them in the laboratory, and help the scientists breed for traits of importance, such as resistance to angular leaf spot, common bacterial blight, and bean common mosaic virus.

 

Washington’s Wonders

 

At ARS’s Vegetable and Forage Crops Research Laboratory in Prosser, Washington, plant pathologist Richard Larsen and geneticist Phil Miklas recently identified new sources of resistance for protecting snap beans from the viral disease chocolate pod, which was first detected in Wisconsin, Michigan, and other Great Lakes states in 2001 and inflicts unsightly defects on pods, ruining their marketability.

 

Insecticides are sometimes used to kill virus-transmitting aphids. But incorporating resistance into snap beans is considered a more sustainable approach. Toward that end, the researchers devised DNA marker technology to help speed identification and use of plants harboring chocolate pod resistance without having to grow them to maturity.

 

Reducing insecticide use—and safeguarding the environment—was also the goal of a project that entomologist Stephen Clement recently completed at ARS’s Plant Germplasm Introduction and Testing Research Unit in Pullman, Washington. There, as part of a 3-year project supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Clement led development of chickpea germplasm lines offering beet armyworm resistance. The moth’s caterpillar stage attacks many crops, but is especially problematic in chickpeas in India, which produced 6.6 billion tons of the high-fiber, vitamin-rich crop in 2005.

 

Clement collaborated on the project with scientists at Washington State University-Pullman and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Patancheru, India. In U.S. trials, 28 to 62 percent of beet armyworms that fed on the leaves of resistant chickpeas died within a few days. Those that survived were smaller and shorter than usual. Now, ICRISAT entomologist Hari Sharma is conducting field trials to evaluate the resistant chickpeas’ potential to forestall insecticide use.

 

Earlier this year, George Vandemark, a geneticist at ARS’s Grain Legume Genetics and Physiology Research Unit, also in Pullman, released a new Eston class lentil named “Essex.” This new variety was developed through a collaborative effort involving Vandemark, Fred Muehlbauer (now retired from ARS), and North Dakota State University pulse crop breeder Kevin McPhee.

 

They chose Essex for release because of its outstanding performance in yield trials conducted in Washington State, Idaho, North Dakota, and Montana—states that produced a combined $87 million’s worth of lentils, most of it for export.

 

On average, Essex yielded 1,220 pounds of seed per acre—21 percent more than Eston and 22 percent more than Athena, commercial varieties used for comparison. Essex is intended for production in the Northern Plains, with Mexico and other Latin American nations as prime export destinations.—By Alfredo Flores, Stephanie Yao, and Jan Suszkiw, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.

 

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Pumpkin growers battle a scary foe

 

(University of Illinois via EurekaAlert.com) – Wet conditions have Illinois pumpkin growers on the alert for signs of Phytophthora blight in their fields. This disease nearly destroyed the pumpkin industry in 1999, causing up to 100 percent crop losses in parts of the state. While it's not a new disease to this industry, it is the most devastating and it's already showing up in Illinois.

 

Mohammad Babadoost, University of Illinois Extension specialist in fruit and vegetable pathology, said, "An outbreak of Phytophthora blight in Illinois could devastate most of the country's supply of processed pumpkins and other cucurbit crops in Illinois."

 

Illinois-grown processing pumpkins account for nearly 95 percent of the pumpkins grown in the United States for use in pies, breads, and other foods. Illinois has approximately 25,000 acres of processing and jack-o-lantern pumpkins with a gross value exceeding $160 million per year. Not only is it the biggest vegetable industry in the state, it's also a great source of agrotourism drawing huge crowds to choose jack-o-lantern pumpkins from fields each fall.

 

This disease caused by Phytophthora capsici affects all cucurbits and peppers. Cucurbits include pumpkins, watermelon, honeydew, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and other vine vegetables. This disease affects both commercial and home gardeners, he said.

 

"Despite our attempts to prevent Phytophthora blight from spreading, it is doing exactly that," Babadoost said. "It's a nasty pathogen. I've seen it destroy entire fields. Once the fruit is infected, it's not suitable to process, eat, or carve."

 

This disease can infect the foliage or fruit at any stage of development. In fields, infections typically appear first in low areas where the soil remains wet for longer periods of time. Fruit rot generally starts on the area of the fruit that is in contact with the soil.

 

Babadoost and fellow researchers have devised an integrated pest management (IPM) approach to minimizing the devastation of this disease. In fact, in the past 10 years, they've been able to reduce crop loss from an average of 30 percent loss per year to less than 10 percent loss per year.

 

"To prevent this disease, we recommend crop rotation of three years or longer with non-host crops, followed by seed treatment and routine scouting, especially of low areas in fields," Babadoost said. "Management of this disease requires serious, intensive work by growers, processing companies and Extension personnel. In general, no single method provides adequate control."

 

If Phytophthora blight is observed and localized, Babadoost recommends disking the area of infected plants to prevent the entire loss of a field. Fungicides can also be applied by commercial growers if there is no standing water in the fields. If growers choose to irrigate from a pond, it's important to make sure the pond does not contain run-off from an infested field as the pathogen may be present in the run-off for the whole season.

 

"This disease is greatly affected by moisture," he said. "The best way to prevent it is to keep the site as dry as possible. Home gardeners should water plants in the morning so the plants can dry throughout the day."

 

Pumpkins are important to Illinois, making disease prevention and monitoring crucial, Babadoost said. He remains in close contact with growers and industry representatives in order to keep diseases like this one under control.

 

"When the pumpkin industry experiences loss, it affects our state's economy and the people of Illinois," Babadoost said. "But more important, this is a unique crop that has value beyond dollars and cents. It's an educational and recreational crop. Any field that draws thousands of visitors every day to view it, such as popular Illinois pumpkin patches in the fall, carries significance beyond its market price."

 

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Food dyes may cause health problems

 

(EDB.org) – Americans’ kitchen cabinets may be stuffed with a rainbow of colorful foods but those foods could lead to allergies, ADHD and possibly cancer, a watchdog group says. Because of the perceived risks, the Center for Science in the Public Interest is calling on the government to ban food dyes in commercial foods.

 

Food dyes can be found in predicable places, such as cereal and bright candies, to not-so-predictable places, such as salad dressing and frozen dinners. American food producers pour about 15 million pounds of dyes into products, a five-fold increase from 1955. Many of the food products containing dyes, such as fruit drinks and cereals with fun, playful colors, are marketed to children.

 

CSPI says Americans’ overconsumption of dyes may be exposing them to unnecessary and dangerous health risks. They contend children are at the highest risk. According to a CSPI press release, multiple studies have linked some dyes to allergic reaction, which the group admits is extremely rare, and hyperactivity in children.

 

But many of the dyes may pose a threat to everyone’s health. The group says the most widely-used dyes – Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 – are suspected to cause cancer in high doses. However, the evidence is based primarily on rodent testing in higher doses than found in food products.

 

“These synthetic chemicals do absolutely nothing to improve the nutritional quality or safety of foods, but trigger behavior problems in children and, possibly, cancer in anybody,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson, co-author of the 58-page report: Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks, in a press release. “The Food and Drug Administration should ban dyes, which would force industry to color foods with real food ingredients, not toxic petrochemicals.”

 

The FDA previously banned food dyes for health risks. Orange B was approved for coloring sausage casings, but in 1978 the FDA proposed banning it because it was found to be toxic to rats. The industry has not used Orange B for more than a decade.

 

The group maintains the food dye chemicals incorporated into thousands of food products are unnecessary and dangerous, and other countries have agreed. Because of concerns about dyes’ impairment of children’s behavior, the British government asked companies to phase out most dyes by last December 31, and on July 20, the European Union is requiring a warning notice for most food products with dye.

 

The CSPI suggests companies rely on natural colors, such as pumpkin and carrot extract for orange foods, to maintain their bright appeal.

 

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Healthy spuds are almost organic

 

(JSOnline.com) – Back in 1996, before "sustainable agriculture" was a household phrase, a groundbreaking, collaborative effort was launched among the University of Wisconsin's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association and the World Wildlife Fund.

 

The point of the Healthy Grown program was to improve practices on the part of large-scale Wisconsin vegetable growers that were environmentally sensitive - including reduced use of pesticides and soil preservation - while also promoting ecological restoration on their farms.

 

Deana Knuteson, UW researcher and outreach specialist, has been working with the program for 10 years.

 

"It's not organic, it's not conventional," she said of the methods employed. "It's an ecologically sensitive way to grow vegetables that can be done on a larger scale."

 

And it's a shame more people don't know about it.

 

Getting the potatoes into stores on a widespread and consistent basis has been an uphill battle.

 

"Some stores order them for a while, then they don't. Then they order them again," said Tim Feit, director of promotions and consumer education for the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association. "You never know."

 

"It's better for the environment, it's better for the wildlife, it's better for the soil, but it's not totally organic," said Rick Kantner, director of sales and marketing for Alsum Farms and Produce, a potato grower and produce distributor near Spring Green. "The problem is it's in between. They say that's the worst thing to be, in between."

 

Like organic growers, farmers who wish to sell their potatoes under the Healthy Grown label must undergo a rigorous annual certification process. Certification is done by an independent non-profit agency, Protected Harvest, on a field-by-field basis.

 

To qualify, farmers have to practice what's called integrated pest management, and they have to restore some of their privately owned land to its pre-settlement condition - basically, the prairie, with native plants, in hopes of luring back birds and wildlife.

 

In any year, 11 to 15 growers qualify, Knuteson said. Applications for certification cover from 10,000 to 15,000 acres; from 6,000 to 8,000 actually get certified. ("It's tough," she said.) That's out of about 30,000 total acres of fresh market potatoes across the state.

 

Maintaining acreage as Healthy Grown takes sustained effort.

 

"They use the good bugs to eat the bad bugs," Feit said of the growers. "They go into the field and will only apply the plant 'medicine,' if you want to call it that, to a certain section of the field instead of doing it to the whole field because it's easier.

 

"There's a lot of time and energy that goes into it. . . .  And (for certification) they have to spend time keeping careful records of everything that goes into the crop."

 

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