" I heard it through the AgLine"

July 20, 2010

 

 

·        Healing honey spurs new queen beekeepers

·        US airlines look to biofuel as a cost cutter

·        Sweet smell of success for Walla Wallas

·        Alternative frost protection methods eyed

·        Wasps sent to fight Thai cassava plague

 

 

Healing honey spurs new queen beekeepers

 

(GPB News) – Beekeeping classes from Medina, Ohio, to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and New York are seeing an unexpected shift in enrollment. Numbers are way up as thousands of novices take up the hobby. And who are these new beekeepers? Increasingly, they're women.

 

"The surge has really been with younger, urban women," explains longtime instructor Kim Flottum, who teaches beekeeping in Medina.

 

Flottum estimates that there are about 100,000 backyard beekeepers across the United States. Exact numbers are hard to pin down. But subscriptions to the publication Bee Culture are on the rise. And when Flottum published a how-to book -- An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden -- 60,000 people snapped up copies. The book is aimed at making the hobby easier and using more lightweight equipment.

 

The Healing Properties Of Liquid Gold

 

So why are people so gaga for bees? Well, for starters, there's renewed interest in the age-old health claims about honey.

 

Two millenia ago, the Roman historian Pliny the Elder declared honey to be the finest, most health-promoting liquid known to man.

 

These claims are still circulating today, with many folks using honey to try to stave off allergies. (I investigate this and other health claims about honey in my Tiny Desk Kitchen show; watch the video above).

 

The local, grow-your-own food movement fuels enthusiasm, too. "I think there's a real revival of interest in rural things," says Jenn Sass, an urban beekeeping pioneer who lives just outside Washington, D.C., in Maryland's Montgomery County. Even though space is at a premium, her bees can pollinate flowers and plants in yards all over her neighborhood.

 

Hive Mentality

 

"What I'm trying to discover is how productive my bees have been," Sass explains as she lifts the cover of one her hives. She points to a nice, thick covering of honey inside. "That's good," she says, pleased with the progress. She also spots her essential queen bee.

 

But there are also a bunch of bees loafing at the bottom of the hive. "These are the male bees, the drones," Sass says. She has become fascinated with the behavior of bees.

 

The queen bee considers the drones to be slackers or freeloaders once they finish their sole task in the hive: fertilizing the queen. So, at this point in the summer, the queen is ready to kick them out.

 

"The worker bees kind of peck and bother the drones to chase them out," Sass explains. "So it's a cold winter if you're a drone."

 

This brutal efficiency has served the honeybee species well over the millennia. But there's a big problem for bees these days: a syndrome called colony collapse disorder, in which whole hives suddenly perish

 

"We've lost 50 percent of our bee colonies in the last 10 years, and it's really a mystery what's happening," says Sass, who is also a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

 

Farmers Need Bees

 

If the sole purpose of a bee was to make honey, perhaps the decline of bees wouldn't be so troubling. But these tiny workers are hugely important to our food supply. They pollinate billions of dollars worth of fruits and vegetables every year.

 

Think about your own diet today. Have you eaten an apple, a cucumber, some blueberries or almonds? These foods wouldn't end up on our tables if it weren't for the work of bees.

 

There are almost 900 commercial beekeepers in the United States. Dave Hackenberg is among them. Farmers pay him to bring his hives to their fields. He drives his beehives to sites all over the country, from cranberry bogs in New England to almond groves in California, so the bees can pollinate these crops.

 

"I'm on the road in Pennsylvania," Hackenberg told me when I reached him on his cell phone last week. He was delivering his bees to some pumpkins. Without the bees, the pumpkins just wouldn't grow right. They would be lopsided -- or really small -- and the farmer wouldn't get enough pumpkins to make it worth his time. So you can see why farmers need bees.

 

But Hackenberg says it's becoming harder for commercial beekeepers to make a good living. He's lost a bunch of hives to the colony collapse phenomenon. "When you're losing thousands of them [hives] and you've got to replace them on a yearly basis, then it's tough."

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to help. It has handed out $6 million in emergency assistance this summer to beekeepers who have lost their hives. Meanwhile, scientists are still trying to figure out what's causing bee colony collapse. The latest thinking is that some combination of viruses, mites, pesticides and climate change may be weakening bees' immune systems.

 

For now, there's plenty of honey to go around, thanks in part to the enthusiasm of urban beekeepers.

 

"For sure there is a food revolution, and the revolution is to stay local," says Jenn Sass, "and to be excited about what you can put on your table from within 50 feet of your house."

 

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US airlines look to biofuel as a cost cutter

 

(alaskasworld.com) SEATTLE — Alaska Airlines, Boeing (NYSE: BA), Portland International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Spokane International Airport and Washington State University recently announced a strategic initiative to promote aviation biofuel development in the Pacific Northwest.

 

The first regional assessment of its kind in the United States, the "Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest" project will look at biomass options within a four-state area as possible sources for creating renewable jet fuel.

 

The comprehensive assessment will examine all phases of developing a sustainable biofuel industry, including biomass production and harvest, refining, transport infrastructure and actual use by airlines. It will include an analysis of potential biomass sources that are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, including algae, agriculturally based oilseeds such as camelina, wood byproducts and others. The project is jointly funded by the participating parties and is expected to be completed in approximately six months.

 

"By transitioning to a more fuel-efficient fleet and adopting technology to follow more direct flight paths, Alaska Airlines has made significant strides in minimizing the environmental impact of our flying in the communities we serve," said Alaska Air Group Chairman and CEO Bill Ayer. "Through this initiative, we are joining other key stakeholders in our region to explore the development of alternatives to jet fuel that could further reduce our carbon footprint."

 

"The Pacific Northwest is a global gateway for people, cultures and commerce and aviation is a vital contributor to that process," said Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh. "Developing a sustainable aviation fuel supply now is a top priority both to ensure continued economic growth and prosperity at regional levels and to support the broader aim of achieving carbon-neutral growth across the industry by 2020."

 

"The Port of Seattle is committed to finding new ways to protect the environment while sustaining jobs and economic growth," said Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani. "Sustainable biofuels for aircraft could help reduce Sea-Tac Airport's environmental impact even further and also create jobs in an emerging industry."

 

The assessment process will be managed by Climate Solutions, a Northwest-based environmental nonprofit organization, which will align the effort to sustainability criteria developed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels. The project objective is to identify potential pathways and necessary actions to make aviation biofuel commercially available to airline operators serving the region.

 

The project will begin in July with a kickoff meeting, followed by additional meetings throughout the assessment process. The group of biomass producers, refiners, airport operators, environmental and government organizations, airlines, academic representatives and Boeing will address issues such as scale, commercial viability and environmental considerations.

 

"Washington State University is uniquely poised to tackle this project," said John Gardner, WSU vice president of economic development and global engagement. "It's critical that understanding and policy keep pace with the science and technology as we shape this next era of biofuels that we are convinced will be sustainable."

 

Because biomass sources absorb carbon dioxide while growing and can have higher energy content than fossil-based fuel, their increased efficiency and use as aviation biofuel could potentially save millions of tons of aviation greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Air travel currently generates approximately 2 percent of man-made carbon emissions, and the industry has set aggressive goals to lower its carbon footprint, including the use of aviation biofuel when it becomes available. Today flying is one of the most efficient forms of travel based on average aircraft load factors and fuel use per seat-mile. Because the airline industry directly generates approximately 8 percent of global GDP, it is a critical factor in regional and domestic economic growth.

 

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Sweet smell of success for Walla Wallas

 

(Seattle Times) WALLA WALLA  -- A sweet, homegrown and enduring family tradition is unfolding again this summer in the fields surrounding Walla Walla.

 

Walla Walla sweet onions, Washington's official state vegetable, are being hand-picked, processed and shipped to retail stores regionally and nationally.

 

Walla Walla sweets have been coveted by consumers for decades because of their exceptional sweetness, mild flavor and jumbo size.

 

Since 1995, Walla Walla sweets have been designated a unique variety that can be grown only in a federally protected growing area encompassing the Walla Walla Valley and part of northeast Oregon under a U.S. Department of Agriculture marketing order.

 

And growers preserve that uniqueness by growing and harvesting by hand their own seeds, which have traits developed over the generations by grower families — many of them descendants of Italian immigrants. Some who raise those sweets today are the second or third generation of their families to do so.

 

"We are preserving the integrity of the crop," said Kathy Fry, manager of the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Marketing Committee.

 

There are 27 growers in the marketing committee. They raise sweets on everything from half-acre plots to sell at local farmers markets to producers who have over 200 acres and ship to major retail chains, Fry said.

 

Sweet onions comprise a fraction of all the U.S.-grown onions, a crop that is the nation's third-largest vegetable industry, said Kimberly Reddin, spokeswoman for the National Onion Association. There are only about 1,000 growers of all varieties in the U.S., and Washington in 2008 ranked as the top state with 21,720 acres and 1.24 billion pounds produced, she said.

 

But sweet onions are a "small but mighty" segment of the industry, Reddin said.

 

Vidalias, grown in Georgia, are No. 1 in sales among sweet onions, representing a third of all onion sales nationally, said Wendy Brannen, executive director of the Vidalia Onion Committee.

 

Growers of Walla Walla sweets and their fans, though, view their product as the sweetest.

 

"Ours are thicker, more succulent than Vidalias. They tend to be smaller in size," said Mike Locati of Locati Farms, a third-generation grower. "I like the texture of our Walla Wallas better."

 

And this year's crop, particularly the super colossals, is exceptionally sweet, said Ben Cavalli Jr., owner of Cavalli Onion Acres and a third-generation grower.

 

Cavalli credits slow, steady rains during a cool and wet late spring and the area's rich soil.

 

A mild climate also contributes to the properties of the sweets. But Walla Wallas also have a short shelf life and are fragile enough that they must be harvested by hand, Locati said.

 

Harvest this year began in late June, delayed at least 10 days by the cool late spring. It's expected to run through mid-August.

 

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Alternative frost protection methods eyed

 

(TBO.com) – Sinkholes that developed in part because of heavy groundwater pumping by farmers protecting their crops in January have helped spawn a research project by University of Florida scientists.

 

Jack E. Rechcigl, director of the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Balm, said his team will be looking at several alternatives for farmers to protect their crops from freeze damage. A safe alternative is needed in light of the damaging effects that sinkholes caused to public and private property this year, Rechcigl said.

 

For the about the last 40 years farmers have relied on using millions of gallons of water from deep wells to coat strawberry fields with a layer of ice when the temperatures drop below freezing. As long as the deep well water is continuously applied the blossoms and immature berries will be protected. In January, 12 straight nights of freezing temperature forced farmers to spray more than 1 billion gallons of water on their crops.

 

One of the alternatives the research center task force is looking at as a frost protection measure is hoop tunnels, a non-permanent structure covered with plastic that could be erected in the fields to protect the strawberries during a freeze event.

 

Assistant professor Bielinski Santos, a horticultural scientist at the research center, said it is possible that the estimated 8,000 acres of strawberry fields in eastern Hillsborough County could be protected from freeze damage.

 

"Hoop tunnels have proven to be very effective," Santos said. "That is the way strawberries are grown all around the world."

 

Other options are considered, he said.

 

"We are also looking at foam, roll covers, low volume sprinklers and intermittent irrigation. We want to provide the grower proven methods from which they can pick and choose. One of the components in my program is to provide the grower with the most economic method."

 

Foam would be applied to the field by tractors or mechanical sprayers. Roll covers are large insolated blankets that would be applied above the crop.

 

Santos said the research center is receiving support from the Southwest Florida Water Management District on testing low volume sprinklers as a freeze protection measure.

 

"More testing is needed in the field," Santos said. "We are looking for a cost effective methods that will provide protection without breaking the bank."

 

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Wasps sent to fight Thai cassava plague

 

(The New York Times) BANGKOK — The first wave of an army of 250,000 wasps was deployed over the weekend in a campaign to eradicate a plague of mealybugs that threatens to devastate Thailand’s $1.5 billion crop of cassava plants.

 

Bred in Thailand from a cache of 500 pairs of wasps flown in late last year from Africa, the tiny insects, each smaller than a pinhead, crawled out of small plastic vials in a cassava field in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen on Saturday and Sunday and began hunting down their prey.

 

More accurate than cruise missiles, the wasps home in on the mealybugs, piercing and laying their eggs inside the little insects. The eggs devour the bugs from within, emerging in a few days from their mummified shells to seek new hosts.

 

It is the latest battle in a seemingly unending competition between farmers and predators for the crops that sustain them both, with this species of mealybugs feeding exclusively on cassava and the wasps feeding exclusively on the cassava-eating mealybugs.

 

“In that sense, it’s the perfect biological control,” said Rod Lefroy, regional research coordinator in Asia for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, a nonprofit group that has coordinated the release.

 

The use of wasps, which has been effective in Africa, is expected to also succeed in Thailand, the world’s leading exporter of cassava, which is also known as manioc, tapioca and yucca.

 

“We’ve got the start of the first victory, but the greater war continues,” Mr. Lefroy said.

 

In Africa, where the use of wasps to kill off mealybugs was pioneered, a new plague is already threatening vast cassava plantations: a disease known as brown streak, for which no cure has yet been found.

 

“It’s going to be an international game of cat and mouse,” said Tony Bellotti, an entomologist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia who is a specialist in wasps and mealybugs. “As the cassava mealybug finds its way to new countries, we can send in the wasps.”

 

Early signs of mealybug infestation have been reported in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, Thailand’s neighbors. “Cassava production in Southeast Asia has enjoyed an extended honeymoon, relatively free of major pest and disease outbreaks,” Mr. Bellotti said.

 

“But now it’s over. And the mealybug isn’t the only cassava pest out there. Mites and whiteflies, for example, are also extremely damaging, and there are some worrying diseases as well.”

 

Thailand, the third largest producer of cassava after Nigeria and Brazil, accounts for 60 percent of worldwide exports of the root, which is used in foods like noodles, the flavor-enhancer monosodium glutamate and products including toothpaste. Vietnam accounts for an additional 30 percent of global trade in cassava.

 

Much larger areas are cultivated in Africa, but Mr. Lefroy said that about 50 percent of production there was consumed locally as food.

 

Most of Thailand’s exports go to China, which produces 40 percent of its own huge needs for the plant. China’s consumption is expected to double in the next few years, making cassava an increasingly lucrative crop.

 

The mealybugs, with a life cycle of about a month, can spread fast, with each insect laying an average of 440 eggs and producing 10 generations in a year. The bugs feed on the tips of cassava plants, stunting their growth with a toxic saliva.

 

The wasps breed alongside them, and in a successful ecological balance, an infestation will stabilize at about 10 percent of the crop.

 

“As an ideal biological control, they kill the majority, but there’ll always be a small population,” Mr. Lefroy said. “So as the populations of mealybugs go up, the wasp population goes up and brings it down again. Almost certainly it will never disappear but will be kept under acceptable control.”

 

He added: “There’s a bit of an issue getting farmers used to the idea that a small number is not a bad thing, that it’s even a good thing.”

 

The threat to Thailand’s industry emerged in force last year, when 20 percent to 25 percent of the crop was destroyed, frightening farmers and driving up prices.

 

Hundreds of farmers attended the ceremonial first release Saturday in Khon Kaen, some of them gathering up handfuls of wasps for themselves, Mr. Lefroy said.

 

The tiny wasps neither buzz nor sting, he said. “You’ve got to be an entomologist to even think of them as wasps.”

 

About 10,000 of them are being released to inaugurate the program, although only a few dozen are needed on a typical farm.

 

With the rescue of their fields and the higher prices commanded after the shortfall last year, Mr. Lefroy said, “there should be a lot of happy farmers this year.”

 

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