" I heard it through the AgLine"

December 7, 2011

 

 

·       Wine wins in recession-weary Michigan

·       Whitefly no match for Texas-bred tomato

·       For stronger plants, make them all female

·       FMC Corp. acquires two Bayer fungicides

·       Virginian stumps to legalize hemp growing

 

 

Wine wins in recession-weary Michigan

 

(AP) LAKE LEELANAU, Mich.  A state thirsting for good economic news is toasting the success of an up-and-coming industry: winemaking.

 

Vineyards and tasting rooms are springing up rapidly in Michigan, where fertile hillsides near the Great Lakes provide ideal settings for cool-weather varieties such as riesling, pinot grigio and chardonnay. Grape growing and wine making still have only a fraction of the muscle wielded by the automobile industry, but their success is striking given the economic downturn, which hit Michigan years before the rest of the nation.

 

Eleven wineries have opened in the past year and four others will soon follow, said Linda Jones, executive director of the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council. The number of Michigan wineries using fruit grown in state has jumped from 18 to 89 in the past couple of decades.

 

Dan Matthies, who operates Chateau Fontaine in scenic Leelanau County and is a real estate agent focusing on properties suitable for vineyards, has brokered sales of five parcels this year and says he's flooded with inquiries from people wanting to break into the wine business.

 

"It is one of the brightest spots we have in the state of Michigan," Matthies said, steering a jouncing pickup through one of his vineyards as laborers snipped bunches of grapes and dumped them into giant crates.

 

The industry's recent growth reflects, in part, the overall health of the nation's farm economy. Farm income is expected to hit an all-time high this year, and the value of farmland has seen double-digit increases.

 

A 2007 study found that Michigan agriculture was growing five times faster than the state economy as a whole — a trend that appears to have continued, said Bill Knudsen, a Michigan State University analyst who wrote the report and is preparing an update.

 

"The fact that food is a necessity means even though things are bad, agriculture will at least hold its own," Knudsen said. "It isn't completely recession-proof but it comes about as close as you will ever find."

 

Wine isn't a necessity, of course. But vineyards, like many Michigan farms, have benefited from consumers' growing interest in locally produced foods. Wine sales in Michigan rose 4 percent overall last year, but sales of Michigan-made wines jumped 12 percent. Matthies said that's no accident: Customer loyalty matters in a state where "Buy American" became a rallying cry as imports hammered the auto industry.

 

"They realize we are literally selling them the fruits of our labor ... and they're supporting us," he said.

 

During a visit to Chateau Fontaine's tasting room, Joseph Jones of Fife Lake said he's willing to pay more for Michigan wine than for similar varieties from California or Europe.

 

"We want to see our wineries succeed," said Jones, who isn't related to Linda Jones. "Their quality is excellent, so it's not like we're stepping down."

 

The recession's most noticeable effect is that people are buying less expensive wines, just as they've settled for hamburger instead of steak, Linda Jones said. They're also buying more bottles at stores to drink at home while cutting back at restaurants, where wine costs more.

 

"But people drink in good times and bad," she said. "It's an affordable indulgence to have a good bottle of wine with a meal."

 

Michigan's wine industry also has benefitted from the state's climate. Most of the state's vineyards and wineries are near Lake Michigan in the western corners of the Lower Peninsula, notable for gentle slopes formed by Ice Age glaciers.

 

The lake has a moderating influence on temperatures near the shore, helping prevent late spring frosts while prolonging mild weather for fall grape harvests. Abundant snow wraps vines in a thick blanket that prevents winter freezing. Hillsides provide generous exposure to the sun during summer growing season.

 

Vineyards have already gobbled up much of the land suitable for grape growing and the number of good locations left is dwindling, said Paolo Sabbatini, a Michigan State viticulturist. But he also said growers are experimenting with "super-hardy" varieties that could expand significantly the reach of Michigan wine country. For now, about 2,000 of the state's 14,600 acres of vineyards produce wine grapes. The rest are used for juice.

 

Michigan's reputation for quality wine has surged while its lineup of varieties has expanded. Wineries are now turning highly regarded selections of merlot, pinot noir, pinot blanc, cabernet franc and ice wines, a dessert variety made with grapes frozen before harvesting.

 

"It's been like an explosion the last couple of years. They've been winning medals left and right, competing across the U.S. and internationally," said Yolanda Daly, director of the Pacific Rim Wine Competition in San Bernadino, Calif. "Beautiful wines are coming out of Michigan."

 

As word spreads, businesses in Michigan's wine regions reap the benefits. About 1 million people visit the state's wineries each year. They tend to have enough money for dining out, buying gifts and entertainment, said Brad Van Dommelen, president of the convention and visitors bureau in Traverse City, recently named by TripAdvisor.com as one of America's top 10 wine destinations.

 

The industry pumps about $300 million into the state's economy each year and employs thousands of people in wine production and spinoff jobs in hotels, restaurants and shops.

 

"We're also making lists of the top foodie towns because of our restaurants," Van Dommelen said. "When you offer a top-quality wine experience along with that, it's huge for tourism — and for the entire local economy."

 

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Whitefly no match for Texas-bred tomato

 

(AgriLife Today) – A 10-year battle against the insect all but wiped out the tomato industry in Texas, but the new tomato already is encouraging small processors to stay in business, according to Dr. Kevin Crosby, AgriLife Research vegetable breeder.

 

“We first saw this new virus around 2002 or so,” Crosby said. “There were strains of this virus complex always in the Rio Grande Valley, but they weren’t nearly as easily spread by the whitefly as this new strain that originated in the Middle East and then went from Florida to Mexico and then came to Texas.

 

“It spreads like wildfire. I’ve seen a 50-acre field just plowed under because they couldn’t get a single tomato out of them. There are so many whiteflies down there in that subtropical region, you really can never completely eliminate whiteflies. You can’t do it."

 

The researcher said tomato plants as young as three weeks old can be infected by the whiteflies, causing leaves to curl and turn yellow, ultimately killing the entire plant.

 

Tomato processing in the Rio Grande Valley pulled the plug rather than fight the prolific fly, industry officials said.

 

“Whiteflies just devastated the tomato industry here,” said Buddy Ault, owner of Rio Valley Canning Co. in Donna. “At one time the Rio Grande Valley was producing about 40,000 acres of tomatoes until the whitefly came along. Acreage plunged. Then, about five years ago we noticed that plants were dying just when the fruit was about to mature. The leaves turned yellow and cut off nutrients to the fruit, causing tomatoes to stay green on the inside.”

 

Growers first blamed the whitefly, then realized a virus carried by whitefly was to blame, Ault said.

 

“So, we asked Texas AgriLife Research about the possibility of developing an open-pollinated, virus-resistant variety,” he said.

 

Help came from previous research conducted in Texas, aided by national and international vegetable breeding networks, Crosby said.

 

“Dr. Paul Leeper, who was a scientist at (AgriLife Research in) Weslaco for decades, did a lot of the early work on hot climate, processing tomatoes. As a result, he built a lot of very good varieties for the industry. In fact, his tomatoes at one point were the most popular tomatoes in tropical places because they could tolerate the heat,” Crosby noted. “But we found out that they could not tolerate the new viruses that have been brought in by the whitefly.”

 

Crosby called upon colleagues in Florida and Taiwan, who had identified tomato genes that provide resistance to the viral disease, in seeking plants to cross with the Texas varieties. He got a supply to test from Dr. Peter Hansen at the World Vegetable Research and Development Center in Taiwan, as well as from Dr. Jay Scott, a world-famous tomato breeder at the University of Florida.

 

“We were able to cross those lines with our Weslaco lines and generate material that was adapted to Texas and that had good processing qualities,” Crosby said.

 

For now, the new variety called T-5 is being tested by some producers in the Rio Grande Valley and Crosby said the results are promising.

 

“Because it combines two distinct virus-resistance genes, resistance has been outstanding,” he said.

 

“The new variety is impressive,” said Ault, whose company cans a mixture of diced tomatoes and green peppers for H-E-B’s Hill Country Fare label.

 

“We like the T-5 very much,” he said. “It is highly productive, has good flavor, good color and is virus resistant. What we don’t like about it is that it is an indeterminate variety, meaning not all the fruit sets and matures on the plant at the same time. As a processor, we prefer one that sets fruit all at the same time. But considering we had little to work with prior to the T-5, we’re optimistic Dr. Crosby’s good work will prevail.”

 

Crosby plans to continue the virus-resistance research for the fresh tomato types and to develop varieties suited for growing in the different climate across the state.

 “Growers of fresh market tomatoes are interested in our work because there’s little to nothing in the vine-ripe class or heirloom-type cultivars, which are well-adapted to the heat and have the virus resistance,” Crosby said.

 

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For stronger plants, make them all female

 

(RedOrbit.com) – A Purdue University researcher has taken corn off steroids and found that the results might lead to improvements in that and other crops.

 

Burkhard Schulz, an assistant professor of horticulture and landscape architecture, wanted to understand the relationship between natural brassinosteroids – a natural plant steroid hormone – and plant architecture, specifically plant height. Schulz said corn could benefit by becoming shorter and sturdier, but the mechanisms that control those traits are not completely understood.

 

“It is essential to change the architecture of plants to minimize how much land we need to produce food and fuels,” said Schulz, whose findings are published in the early online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “If you can find a natural mutation or mechanism that gives you what you need, you are much better off than using transgenic techniques that could be difficult to get approval for.”

 

Schulz found that when maize loses the ability to produce brassinosteroids, it becomes a dwarf, as he suspected. But another feature caught him off guard: The plants without the naturally occurring steroids could not make male organs – they had kernels where the tassels should be.

 

That could be a cost-saving discovery for the seed industry. Hybrid seed producers must painstakingly remove the male pollen-producing tassels from each plant so that they do not pollinate themselves. Schulz said maize plants that produce only female organs would eliminate the detasseling step.

 

“This would be the perfect mutation for hybrid seed production,” Schulz said. “There is no way these plants could produce pollen because they do not have male flowers.”

 

Schulz used a multistep process to determine brassinosteroids’ role in height and, later, sex determination. He wanted to ensure that light and the addition of gibberelic acid, a hormone that promotes cell growth and elongation, would not eliminate the dwarfism.

 

Schulz gathered known mutants of maize with short mesocotyls, the first node on a corn stalk. He suspected that even dwarf plants that produced brassinosteroids would have elongated mesocotyls if grown in the dark as they stretched for light, a trait typical of all brassinosteroid mutants. He also added gibberellic acid to the plants to ensure that a deficiency of that hormone was not causing the dwarfism.

 

The dwarf plants that did not grow in the dark or with the addition of the gibberellic acid were compared to regular maize plants that had been dwarfed by subjecting them to a chemical that disrupts the creation of brassinosteroids. Both exhibited short stalks with twisted leaves and showed the feminization of the male tassel flower.

 

Schulz then used information that was already known from the research plant Arabidopsis about genes that control brassinosteroid production. He found the same genes in the maize genome.

 

In the dwarf maize plants, those genes were mutated, disrupting the biosynthesis of the steroids. A chemical analysis showed that the compounds produced along the pathway of gene to steroid were greatly diminished in the maize dwarfs. Cloning of the gene revealed that an enzyme of the brassinosteroid pathway was defective in the mutant plants. A related enzyme in humans has been reported as essential for the production of the sex steroid hormone testosterone. Mutations in this enzyme in humans also resulted in feminization.

 

While Schulz expected brassinosteroids to affect plant height, he said he did not expect those steroids to affect sex determination.

 

“We don’t know if this is a special case for corn or if this is generally the same in other plants,” he said. “If it is the same in other plants, it should be useful for creating plants or trees in which you want only males or females.”

 

Gurmukh Johal, a professor of botany and plant pathology and collaborator on the research, identified the mutant used in the research, nana plant1, years ago. He said better understanding the steroid-production pathways could be important to strengthening maize plants and increasing yields.

 

“Maize produces too much pollen and it actually wastes a lot of energy on that,” Johal said. “This implies that by using this gene or the pathway it controls, we could manipulate the plants to improve their quality.”

 

Schulz said he would look at other plants, such as sorghum, to determine if the same genes and pathways control sex determination and height.

 

The project was an international collaboration with George Chuck from the Plant Gene Expression Center at the University of California Berkeley, Shozo Fujioka of RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Japan, Sunghwa Choe of Seoul National University in South Korea, and Devi Prasad Potluri of Chicago State University.

 

The National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the research.

 

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FMC Corp. acquires two Bayer fungicides

 

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Diversified chemical company FMC Corp. said Tuesday it has acquired two fungicides used for disease control in a number of crops from Bayer CropScience, an arm of Bayer AG. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

 

FMC, based in Philadelphia, said it bought the rights to Rovral and Sportak fungicides for agricultural use outside Europe, where Bayer retains rights.

 

The fungicides are registered in more than 50 countries and used mainly in tree, fruit and vegetable markets and for a range of crops; including cereals, canola and soybeans.

 

"This divestment is in line with our global strategy to optimize our portfolio and to build a solid foundation for profitable growth," said Sandra Peterson, CEO Bayer CropScience in a statement.

 

FMC CEO Pierre Brondeau added, "We continue to execute our long-term plan to grow FMC organically and through targeted acquisitions that supplement our technology portfolio and strengthen our positions in critical businesses, markets and regions."

 

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Virginian stumps to legalize hemp growing

 

(WTVR.com) RINER; Va. — Ten-thousand new jobs for Virginians; that what one politician believes he can create by growing a single new crop.  The problem is that crop is currently outlawed.

 

From money to milk, clothes to cars; there are an estimated 25,000 products, all with one common thread: hemp.

 

"Hemp paper, hemp clothing, hemp oil, hemp seed, we’ve been using hemp in our food for 4,000 years," explained VT Professor of Crop Sciences Dr. Jim McKenna.

 

The US buys hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hemp product every year, but American farmers can't grow the crop.

 

“One of the problems in our economy today is being over regulated.  One regulation needs to be changed to be able to do this, and that's what I'm trying to do, to get it changed," said Montgomery County Board of Supervisors member Jim Politis, a Republican.

 

Jim Politis says growing industrial hemp could bring thousands of agriculture and manufacturing jobs back to Virginia.

 

"I'm just so excited about it, I think it could help reshape the future of this country," said Politis. “It’s not the answer, but it’s a portion of the answer.”

 

The problem is that industrial hemp comes from the plant cannabis, the same plant that marijuana comes from, which has been outlawed by the Drug Enforcement Agency since the 1930's.

 

“It’s the difference between a wolf and a chihuahua,” said Politis, using the analogy that both animals are of the canine species.

 

“It's just another crop,” said McKenna. “It just happens to be a crop that has a bad relative, I guess if you want to think of it in those terms.”

 

Dr. Jim McKenna is an agriculture professor at Virginia Tech. He says hemp has very low THC levels, which is the component of marijuana that gets you high.  Industrial hemp typically has a THC level of less than .3%, while THC levels in marijuana can range from 1% to 30%.

 

McKenna says he isn’t sure how in-demand hemp is in today's market place, but he does believe the crop often has an unfair stigma.

 

“If indeed the only reason we don’t have hemp legalized is because of its relationship to marijuana, than to me that’s a debate that ought to happen,” said McKenna.  “But it’s got a long uphill battle to become a major crop, because it has to create an entire infrastructure to handle it, market it, and do all the things that needs to be done."

 

Politis wants to do just that; not just grow the crop but build the infrastructure to manufacture and sell it domestically.  

 

"I think if I can get enough grassroots effort than they can’t ignore it," Politis said excitedly of his campaign.

 

He's garnering support from local agencies and municipalities, hoping to eventually put enough pressure on the DEA to separate hemp from marijuana and allow the crop to once again grow in Virginia. 

 

"People don't ever want to go backwards, I think there are things in this country we need to go a little backwards on and this is one of them," said Politis.

 

Politis will meet with Virginia lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday about the issue of de-regulating industrial hemp.

 

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