 |
|||
 |
" I heard it |
||
October 10, 2011
· Growers grapple with resistant superweeds
· Alaskans seeing green in golden potato
· Researchers test chilies for salt tolerance
· Ag schools cope with dwindling funds
· Revival of ancient Incan agriculture
Growers grapple with resistant superweeds
(cbc.ca) – Farming costs, food prices and agricultural pollution may rise as a result of nature's strike back against a biotechnology that has revolutionized modern farming.
"Superweeds" resistant to the herbicide
glyphosate, also known by the trade name Roundup, have infested millions of
hectares of cropland through much of the
That means farmers may no longer be able to reap the benefits of Roundup Ready crops, which are genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate, allowing farmers to control weeds with the herbicide without harming the crops themselves.
Bill Johnson, a weed scientist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., told CBC's The Current that the development of Roundup crops was among agriculture's top one or two most important in the past 60 or 70 years because it allowed farmers to control weeds that had become resistant to a variety of other herbicides. That resistance had been forcing farmers to use complicated mixtures of chemicals to control weeds.
It also meant farmers no longer had to till their fields to control weeds, Johnson said.
"It greatly reduced soil erosion. It allowed farm sizes to expand," he said, noting that tillage is time-consuming and expensive because it uses lots of fuel. Forgoing tillage has also reduced the amount of polluting agricultural run-off into waterways, he said.
Johnsons said glyphosate-resistant weeds began popping up in fields around a decade ago, and by 2002 or 2003, there was a large area in southeast Indiana where over 80 per cent of soybean fields had a glyphosate-resistant strain of mare's tale, a weed also known as Canada fleabane.
Such weeds can double or triple the costs of weed control, he said, and lead to more tillage, more erosion, more water pollution from run-off, increased costs, yield losses and higher food prices.
Philip Shaw, a farmer and agricultural economist near
Shaw said he wonders if Monsanto, the
Trish Jordan, director of public and industry affairs for
Monsanto
The company has been recommending practices such as crop rotation, tilling their fields from time to time if appropriate, and using other herbicides to help control weeds.
It is also working on genetically modified crops that are resistant to other herbicides, such as dicamba-resistant soybeans.
"In the
However Chris Willenborg, a weed scientist at the
He suggested using additional methods such as crop rotation and high seeding rates to keep weed populations low and minimize the chance that they become resistant to Roundup.
Johnson noted that the process of natural selection inevitably leads to the appearance of weeds resistant to any widely used herbicide. The genetic variation within a population eventually produces an individual that can survive the pesticide, and over time, that strain will come to dominate, since all the other strains will have been killed off.
He said companies need to stay ahead of the resistance curve by developing new herbicides and investigating other means of controlling weeds.
He added, "We've simply gotten too accustomed to relying too heavily on a very good technology."
Alaskans see green in golden potato
(newsminer.com) TRAPPER CREEK, Alaska — Golden birch trees marked the edge of Greg Kalal's fields, but the dentist-turned-farmer was more interested in hues beneath the soil on his land south of Mount McKinley.
Among the thousands of colorful potatoes — from yellow German Butterballs to Magic Mollys with flesh so purple it's nearly black — is a half-row of red potatoes with yellow flesh that University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers believe could become a popular and profitable niche product in a state not known for its agriculture.
University officials are pursuing their first plant patent on the unnamed potato that they hope will earn licensing fees from growers. The potato could serve a niche demand for specialty potatoes, meeting a need for locally grown food and offering revenue to farmers such as Kalal.
Carol Lewis, the university's dean of agriculture sciences, described the development as, "Something that's appealing to the chef, that's appealing to the public, possibly, and hopefully, appealing to a buyer, and then appealing to the grower, that also yields well and performs in general well in our short seasons."
Researchers for more than 100 years have developed grains,
grasses, berries and vegetables that could thrive in
In a state far from the food supply chain, the farms contributed to the "grow local" movement long before its recent popularity.
Potatoes were a natural fit for the state. Gold miners wanted them because they could be stored, said state agronomist Bill Campbell, a potato expert.
"If you're just trying to subsist somewhere, you throw out 50 feet, 100 feet, of potatoes. You've got a stash for the winter, if you can keep them from freezing," he said. "Potatoes and milk is a complete food, so if you have yourself a goat or a cow and a batch of potatoes, you can survive."
Potatoes are especially valuable in villages off the road system, offering a nutritious food that carries the added attraction of being distasteful to moose.
Although it ranks as
For the
"That practice is becoming less and less as the funding for the land grants becomes less and less and we look for areas where we can actually make money so that we can continue to do the research that we've been asked to do" Lewis said.
A colorful potato, officials hope, might catch the eye of restaurant chefs or cooks at home, where potato consumption has dropped since 2000, according to a survey by the United States Potato Board.
Kalal's red and yellow variety started with a U.S.
Department of Agriculture researcher at
"He makes the genetic cross of material he thinks would
satisfy the request I give him," said Jeffrey Smeenk, a
The experimental potatoes are started in a greenhouse and transplanted into fields. They're dug up in early fall.
"As we pick up each tuber, we kind of think, 'Could this fill a niche better than material we already know about?' " Smeenk said.
There are markets for all kinds of colors, he said — the
whitest of whites, golf ball-size that can be served with skins, blue-skin
potatoes with white flesh, blue with blue flesh, blue with speckles.
At the end of that first season, about 100 vigorous varieties are picked to grow again. By the third year, only the 20 most promising are retained.
"At that point," Smeenk said, "we usually have enough to boil some up and cook them."
A taste test ensues with volunteers that Smeenk rounds up at the experimental farm. True food scientists, he said, would shudder at the process. On the other hand, "By the time you ask 10 people to look at 20 potatoes, the top five potatoes usually show themselves up pretty quickly."
Volunteer tasters find not all potatoes are created equal.
"They've learned to be somewhat leery that we will be tasting some that might not be as flavorful as you would desire," Smeenk said.
Campbell, the state agronomist, helps pick the best potato candidates and propagated seed that was sold to Kalal to grow under commercial conditions.
"They're just so bright and pretty — and you're selling
pretty,"
In September, Kalal used his commercial harvester to dig up German Butterballs but pulled the experimental red and yellow spuds up by hand. He describes the flesh as "a very butter-scotchy yellow color."
Standing in his field in the shadow of three monarchs of the
The university has no public release date in sight, Smeenk said, even as it works with state agriculture officials to develop additional varieties.
"I don't see these colored flesh things taking over the potato industry, but if you can get a couple of percent of the fresh market total, or expand the decreasing demand for fresh potatoes, by a little bit, to me that's a big help," Campbell said.
Researchers test chilies for salt tolerance
(Las
Cruces Sun-News)
Evan Call, who graduated from NMSU in 2010 with a Master of Science in Plant and Environmental Sciences, began the study, "Evaluation of Two Methodologies to Screen Capsicum for Salt Tolerance," in 2009. Call was advised by Paul Bosland and April Ulery, NMSU plant and environmental science professors.
Call began the study partly in response to the steady
decrease in main water sources for
Plants grown in soil with high saline content are often stunted and have lower yield because salts inhibit nutrient and water uptake by plants, Ulery said. "It takes so much effort for a plant to grow in high saline soil that it expends more energy trying to stay alive than in producing healthy fruit," Ulery said.
The study examined 13 accessions representing five species of chile plants in a germination test to see what percentage of each species showed signs of making it through the growing process when grown in seven saline solutions. Then, the 13 species were narrowed down to eight in a greenhouse test to see which species would emerge through the soil when grown in saline soil mix.
"Early Jalapeno" had the highest emergence percentage at 81 percent. "NuMex Sweet" and P.I. 140375 also finished in the top three performers for saline tolerance, with emergence percentages of more than 70 percent.
In the future, Bosland said he would like to look at inheritance of the salt tolerance trait in chile plants and developing cultivars that are salt tolerant.
Call, Bosland and Ulery also collaborated on a study with
faculty members from
"It is becoming increasingly important to look at saline conditions and water use, especially considering recent changes in water distribution and drought," Ulery said. "We don't know the future or when it is going to get better, but in the meantime we can prepare and use varieties that can handle less water or lower quality water while still maintaining quality of fruit."
Ulery and Bosland said because chile is such an important crop in New Mexico, they hope local farmers will be able to use such research findings to continue to produce healthy crops even in difficult growing conditions.
"Eye on Research" is provided by
Ag schools cope with dwindling funds
(Daily Democrat) – At a time when many of the state's university agricultural programs are experiencing increased enrollment and seeing growing student interest, state funding cuts are forcing some schools to scale back class offerings, turn away applicants and rely more heavily on private contributions and market sales to operate campus farms.
"Budget cuts have had a profound effect on all areas of the campus," said Diane Ullman, associate dean of undergraduate academic programs at the UC Davis College of Environmental and Agricultural Sciences. "It's my opinion that we can't tolerate more budget cuts because we're already cut to the bone."
She said in the last several years her office has seen the number of student applications skyrocket 70 percent to 80 percent, but admissions have had to remain relatively unchanged.
As a campus that is intensely science-driven and a college that has more agricultural production facilities than any other in the state, Ullman said it has always been a challenge trying to keep instructional equipment and technologies updated while delivering the kind of hands-on educational experience that's expected of agricultural programs.
"We've had to make a lot of cuts, and we're at a point where we have to reconsider all those facilities," she said.
Faced with 8 percent cuts for the current school year -- and
nearly 20 percent since 2007 -- Charles Boyer, dean of Jordan College of
Agricultural Sciences and Technology at
Spending reductions have resulted in significant tuition increases and fewer classes being offered, he said. They have also affected how the school farm is run. In the late 1990s, 75 percent of the farm's budget came from the state, the rest from product sales. These days, state dollars make up about 20 percent of the farm's budget.
"So we've had to become more entrepreneurial in our approach," Boyer said.
Having to run the school farm more like a business has exposed students to real-world business and agricultural practices, he said, but the downside is the farm also bears all the risks of a business.
"We're the same as any other segment of agriculture," Boyer said. "If corn goes up to $7 a bushel, guess what? We're stuck with that too. If gasoline goes up to $4.50 a gallon, we're paying those prices. If the almond price crashes, we're taking that lower value."
R.W. "Raoul" Adamchak, coordinator for the UC Davis "market garden," said he thinks running a self-sustaining operation "provides a more realistic experience for the students." A part of the campus student farm, the market garden generates its own income through product sales and grants.
"Things cost money, and these are part of the expenses of farming, so it has to be factored in. They have to make decisions based on the cost of things and the returns," he said.
At
The 6,000-acre Cal Poly farm, much of it pastureland, with livestock and horticulture units, requires constant maintenance and care, he said, and with a budget shortfall, "it just means things don't get taken care of quite as quickly as they had been in the past."
As the university farm administrator at California State University, Chico, Associate Dean David Daley of the College of Agriculture said state funding pays only for the farm's staffing and a bit of maintenance but does not cover the cost of running it.
The university foundation does make money through sales of crops from the farm, he noted, and those proceeds typically would go back to infrastructure and equipment upkeep and improvements, but lately they've been used to help offset state budget cuts.
University officials also express concern about their colleges having to increase class sizes and merge sections, majors and sometimes entire departments in order to keep up with growing student demand in the face of shrinking budgets.
For students like Natsuki Nakamura, who is majoring in environmental science and management in her third year at UC Davis, that means having less contact with faculty and a harder time getting into classes to fulfill graduation requirements.
She noted that a geology class she needs for her major was canceled last spring and is not being offered this fall. With the tuition increase, she said she was hoping to finish a year early, but acknowledged her plans could be delayed if she can't get into certain classes.
Tom Baldwin, UC Riverside dean of the
Daley said it would be "a disservice to all of agriculture" if universities were not able to provide students with the necessary skills and hands-on educational experience they need to move into their respective agricultural professions.
Students will simply have a "narrower set of experiences," Wehner said. And there will probably be fewer of them because the overall CSU enrollment is being lowered. As agriculture becomes increasingly high-tech, cash-starved universities may also not be able to keep up with providing the most up-to-date equipment and facilities for learning, he added.
"I think that could eventually hurt us," Wehner said.
Daley said
Revival of ancient Incan agriculture
(PRI)
– To get to some of
And then, after four hypnotic hours, you've arrived – at a
patch of sparse farmland near the town of
For centuries, Pomacocha's thousand or so residents have grown corn in the fertile valleys below the town and potatoes on slopes that push against the sky above, fed by seasonal rains and glacial streams.
But climate change is hitting the high
So to help them deal with an uncertain future, residents are looking back in time—to before the arrival of Europeans.
From a field of brown soil, Pomacocha resident Mariano
Ccaccya unearths a small, pink potato—a huaña, one of the first to be grown
here in decades. The huaña is the native potato in this part of
Huaña are bitter, Ccaccya says, and it takes a lot of work to make them palatable. But he says there are good reasons to grow them in times of increasing uncertainty.
Ccaccya, who's the local head of a nonprofit group that's leading an effort to revive ancient Andean crops, says huañas can be stored for two or three years, more than four times as long as most other potatoes. Ccaccya's colleague Adripino Jayo says huañas also resist frost, hail, extreme rain and drought.
"It's very, very strong," Jayo says. "Now that we're in the crisis of climate change, it's worth recovering these potatoes."
Others think so too. Jayo and Ccaccya's organization, Cusichaca Andina, recently won a grant from the World Bank to further its efforts to promote a variety of resilient ancient Andean crops, including quinoa, amaranth, and different types of potatoes and squashes.
But changing what's grown here is only part of the plan. Cusichaca Andina is also looking to the past to try to change how crops are grown.
On a steep slope in a valley about two hours from the potato
fields, Jayo pulls away a stand of brush to reveal an overgrown rock wall. He
says the stones are part of a long-abandoned system of agricultural terraces,
built into
Terraces like these once blanketed thousands of square miles
of the
"They built level terraces on the mountains and
hillsides, wherever the soil was good," De la Vega wrote. "And these
are to be seen today in Cusco and in the whole of
Just a small fraction of the terraces are still used today. After the European conquest, Spanish crops and agricultural systems largely displaced traditional ones.
But here in Pomacocha, old terraces are being restored, and new ones are being built.
Ccaccya says they have a lot of benefits. The terraces help channel water for irrigation while avoiding erosion. They can hold water for months, which is crucial in a place with only intermittent access to water. And plants grown on them are more productive, he says.
Cusichaca Andina is also working on reviving another ancient technology for holding and transporting scarce water—Incan irrigation systems that Garcilaso de la Vega called "extraordinary."
"The Cisterns, or Conservatories, were about twelve foot deep, in channels made of hewn stone," de la Vega wrote, "and rammed in with earth so hard, that no water could pass between… But the Spaniards little regarded the convenience of these works, but rather out of a scornful and disdaining humor, have suffered them unto ruin, beyond all recovery."
Centuries later, the digging and hammering of a handful of men near Pomacocha suggests that the ruin of the Incan irrigation channels was perhaps not quite beyond all recovery. The workers are chiseling and lining up stones along a long-abandoned canal once used to divert water from a nearby spring.
"It's always been here," Jayo says, pointing at the stone canal. "It's probably from pre-Incan times, but it's still useful for irrigation, with a little help."
Cusichaca Andina and other groups in the
It's all part of an effort to increase the resilience and food security.
But the leaders of Cusichaca Andina realize they can only make a small dent in a vast need. Jayo says the Peruvian government has a big role to play as well.
"We see the difficulties in the national context,"
Jayo says. He says the group wants politicians in
So far national politicians haven't picked up that slack.
But the work here may have relevance to mountainous regions
beyond
End Transmission