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August 25, 2009
· New clues in the mass death of honeybees
· BASF CEO says takeover bid is possible
· A hedge with an edge for erosion control
· Hops – NC cottage industry or cash crop?
· Parkinson’s and pesticides link questioned
New clues in the mass death of honeybees
(Time)
– In late 2006, something strange began to happen to
This might seem like little more than a tantalizing mystery
for entomologists, except for one fact: honeybees provide $15 billion worth of
value to
A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (PNAS) shows that the causes of CCD may be more varied than scientists
expect. The bees may be dying not from a single toxin or disease but rather
from an assault directed by a collection of pathogens. A research team led by
entomologist May Berenbaum at the
The PNAS team's work was possible only because the honeybee's genome is one of the few animal genomes that scientists have decoded in full. The researchers looked at the genes that were switched on in the guts of sick and healthy bees — the gut being both the place pesticides are detoxified and the main region for immune defense. The technique they used is what's known as a whole-genome microarray, and it's ideal for this kind of sweeping analysis. "It's a really powerful tool that lets us look at all 10,000 honeybee genes at the same time," says Berenbaum. "The causative agents [for CCD] might just leap out."
In the guts of CCD-afflicted bees, the microarray analysis showed unusual fragments of ribosomal RNA. Ribosomes are essentially the protein factories inside cells — they're vital to the health of the cell itself and the larger organism. Berenbaum believes that the presence of those genetic fragments inside the CCD-afflicted bees indicates that they may be under attack by a number of insect viruses — including deformed wing virus and Israeli acute paralysis virus — that damage the ribosomes. "It was the one factor that remained consistently associated with the CCD bees we tested, no matter where they came from or how severe the disorder was," says Berenbaum. "It doesn't have to be a specific virus, just an overload." Once the bees' systems get burdened this way, they are less capable of fighting off any other threat, from pesticides to other environmental causes. (See TIME's video "Bees Without Borders.")
Berenbaum is quick to point out that the microarray analysis is only correlative, meaning that while it can show evidence that certain viruses are present in CCD-afflicted bees, it doesn't reveal exactly what role the viruses play, nor how best to battle them. One approach might be to control infestations by varroa mites, which carry multiple viruses into the hives they attack. The good news is that the disorder may be on the wane, with the Apiary Inspectors of America reporting that deaths from CCD are below 30% for the first time since the crisis began. "The phenomenon seems to be in decline," says Berenbaum. "The most vulnerable populations might have already crashed." American farmers should be thankful; just think of trying to pollinate all those crops by hand.
BASF CEO says takeover bid is possible
(Bloomberg) -- BASF SE, the world’s biggest chemical company, rose to its highest level in almost a year after Chief Executive Officer Juergen Hambrecht said his company may become the target of a hostile takeover.
“Of course, an attack is possible,” German weekly Wirtschaftswoche quoted Hambrecht as saying in an interview. It would take 70 billion euros ($100 billion) for a hostile bid to succeed, he said, adding that would be difficult to raise.
BASF rose as much as 2.7 percent to 37.17 euros in
“The hostile takeover statement might be a smart remark to keep the share price high or even drive it further,” equity analyst Peter Spengler of DZ Bank AG wrote in a note to clients today. He rates the shares “buy” with a price target of 39 euros.
A hedge with an edge for erosion control
(USDA-ARS) – One way farmers can preserve soil and protect water quality is by planting grass hedges to trap sediment that would otherwise be washed away by field runoff.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists at the agency's National Sedimentation Laboratory in Oxford, Miss., have calculated how much soil erosion these hedges prevent and verified predictions of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation version 2 (RUSLE2).
Agronomist Seth Dabney, hydrologist Glenn Wilson and agricultural engineer Robert Cullum collaborated with retired agricultural engineer Keith McGregor in a series of studies over 13 years to assess the effectiveness of grass hedges for erosion control in wide or ultra-narrow-row conventional tillage or no-till cotton systems.
The researchers established single-row continuous swaths of miscanthus, a tall perennial grass, across the lower ends of 72-foot-long plots with a 5 percent slope. Then they tracked how much sediment was trapped by the vegetation from both the wide and ultra-narrow-row conventional tillage and no-till fields. The hedges eventually became a yard wide and were clipped two to three times every year after the grass was 5 to 6.5 feet tall.
The scientists found that the ability of the hedges to trap sediment increased as the hedges matured. The hedges were more effective at intercepting sediments that washed out of conventionally tilled fields, possibly because the eroded materials from no-till fields were composed of smaller particles.
The hedges captured approximately 90 percent of eroded sediment from ultra-narrow-row conventionally tilled fields, and only about 50 percent of sediment from no-till fields. Nevertheless, the actual soil loss from the no-till plots -- either with or without grass hedges -- was much less than the conventionally tilled plots with or without grass hedges, because no-till production helps mitigate erosion.
The team also found that hedge effectiveness was enhanced when clippings were allowed to accumulate uphill of the hedges. But even if all the clippings from grass hedges over 1.5 feet tall are removed for livestock feed or bioenergy production, the hedges can still help protect against field erosion. Hedges could be especially valuable if highly erodible lands in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Conservation Reserve Program are brought back into production.
Results from this study were published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal.
Hops – NC cottage industry or cash crop?
(Black
Mountain News) – Van Burnette’s land has been in his
family for 200 years, and has been operating as farmland for a century. His
ancestors were some of the first settlers in the
Today, Burnette is a pioneer in
his own right, as one of the first farmers in
“I always wanted to be in some kind of niche,” Burnette said. “That’s always been my thing.”
Burnette started his “hopyard” this year, and recently sold his first harvest to local homebrewers. He hopes to one day sell fresh hops to local microbreweries.
If he and others are successful, they could be at the forefront of a new crop for area farmers. Burnette and others see a growing demand for both local products and craft beer.
Despite an economic downturn last year, the craft brewing industry grew by 5.9 percent by volume and 10.1 percent by dollars, according to the Brewers Association, an industry trade group. Craft brewers saw $6.1 billion in revenue last year.
Industry growth also bucked another obstacle – hops prices
spiked 20-80 percent because of shortage in the previous season’s hops crop.
The majority of hops consumed in this country are grown in the Pacific
Northwest, with
For Burnette, hops could be a way to keep the family tradition going, and one day bring additional income. Last year, he applied for a grant from the Agricultural Options Program, designed to create alternative cash crops for family farms. The grant money allowed him to install the irrigation and trellis system necessary for growing hops.
His farm has been designated a North Carolina Century Farm (which offers no tax benefits, only recognition) and has been home to apple orchards, cattle pastures, and gardens to supply basic family staples.
Today, the farm features blueberries and medicinal herbs, in addition to hops. Burnette renamed it “Hop’n Blueberry Farm,” and dreams of a U-pick blueberry patch and a hops harvest party.
The hopyard rises from a gently
sloping field with open views of the
Burnette planted several different varieties and some are doing better than others. Centennial, which often takes longer to establish itself, is the runt of the litter, while the Cascade and Nugget varieties are doing best. Chinook is holding its own.
Hops growing is so new to the region that farmers are still figuring out which varieties will thrive. Burnette based his picks on the preferences of Pisgah Brewing Company and local homebrewers.
Like other growers new to the crop, Burnette is learning how to correctly train the vines, how to prune them to maximize production, how to keep the pests away, and when to harvest.
“A couple of years ago, I didn’t even know what a hop looked like,” he said.
After he harvests this year, he’ll have to figure out how to make his crop more accessible to breweries.
Freshly picked hops are fine for specialty beers such as “harvest ales,” but they must be used within 24 hours. Hops are typically dried for preservation and then vacuum packed and frozen for efficient storage and shipping. Sometimes, they are converted into a pellet form for easy use and storage.
The Madison County Cooperative Extension service has a dryer for herbs that will suffice, but a pelletizing machine and other equipment are expensive.
That could be where a regional hops grower cooperative may
help, said Chris Reedy, a
Reedy, who is helping spearhead the coop effort, said one
recent meeting on growing hops attracted 150 participants, and another
attracted 40-50 people. Nobody has reliable figures on how much hops is being
grown in
What he does know is that hobby growers like himself have been successful for years, and that could translate to a viable commercial crop.
“I’m hoping it can follow along with
“It could be a cottage industry, or maybe even something bigger,” he said.
Parkinson’s and pesticides link questioned
(Wire Services)
According to Pinel, one key clarification focuses on several of the "significant" links reported in the study that involve pesticide exposure conditions. "Perhaps the study's authors lack of familiarity with pesticides and their 'best practices' for application resulted in their failure to recognize that these exposure conditions are very unlikely to occur," she said. For example, it is very unlikely for any participant in this individual study to have been exposed to 10 or more water soluble compounds, or 12 or more of the original 26 chemical compounds mentioned in the study. Some of these compounds are "not" water soluble, and therefore are not likely to be present in well water, Pinel said.
Pinel said readers need to keep in mind that this epidemiological study is the first such study to use agricultural records to reconstruct exposures, as opposed to determining past exposures through individual subject questionnaires and personal interviews. This means the data gathered is general in content and not derived from any specific findings linked to individuals who could have been monitored, she added.
"As is the case in many similar health studies, the
exposure assessment in this UCLA study is sorely lacking," she said. In
this case, she notes, ambient pesticide concentrations within 500 meters of the
homes of those under study were estimated from 25 years of
Both of these factors led the authors to conclude that "our pesticide well water exposure estimates may not completely reflect actual levels of exposure to pesticides from consuming well water," she said.
"This admission, in the context of this most recent UCLA study, merely serves as a glaring understatement as to the veracity and reliability of its findings," Pinel concluded.
The Western Plant Health Association represents the
interests of fertilizer and crop protection manufacturers, biotechnology
providers, distributors and agricultural retailers in
End Transmission