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December 9, 2009
· Monsanto CEO says success brought scrutiny
· Soaring GM seed prices concern growers
· Texas research focuses on hardier transplants
· Honeybees use deadly odor to kill siblings
· Copenhagen climate summit a wild ride
Monsanto CEO says success brought scrutiny
(DesMoinesRegister.com) – Monsanto Chief Executive Hugh Grant said Tuesday that the federal investigation into anticompetitive practices in the seed industry "is the result of the fact that we have grown quickly and have been very successful."
"I feel good that from day one, in 1996, we have
broadly licensed our technology to everybody who wanted it," Grant said at
the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch global markets conference in
"I think we would have had a different conversation had we not done that," he said.
The
Monsanto has about one-third of the
Pioneer Hi-Bred filed an antitrust lawsuit against Monsanto last summer, and its attorneys have drawn a parallel to the Justice Department's case a decade ago against Microsoft. The software company was accused of using its Windows platform to stifle competition.
Monsanto is using the popularity of its Roundup herbicide to compel seed companies to use Monsanto-licensed technology in their seeds, Pioneer's attorneys said.
Grant told investors Tuesday that Monsanto is banking on what he called the company's "game-changing" technologies, Smartstax corn seeds and the newest generation of Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans, for the 2010 season.
Smartstax will be available for about 4 million acres in the 2010 season with full availability by 2012. The new Roundup Ready soybeans, which were introduced for the 2009 crop year, will be available for about 8 million acres in 2010.
Monsanto sells corn through its DeKalb, Kruger's, Fontanelle and Holden's subsidiaries. Soybeans are sold primarily through its Asgrow subsidiary.
Smartstax has biotech traits that enable farmers to reduce their refuge acreage from the current 20 percent to 5 percent. The refuge acreage helps prevent insects from mutating into varieties resistant to seed traits or insecticides.
Ted Crosbie, Monsanto's director of breeding, said limited use of Monsanto's Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans in the 2009 crop year showed test yield gains of up to 7 percent compared with previous generations of soybean seeds.
Pioneer hopes to be in the field by the 2010 planting season with its Acremax corn, which also would require reduced refuge acreage.
Pioneer said Tuesday the company is still negotiating with the Environmental Protection Agency about how much reduction in refuge would be allowed by Acremax.
Soaring GM seed prices concern growers
(Farmers
Weekly Interactive) – Genetically modified seed prices are rocketing and,
with further increases for 2010, growers are starting to question the value of
GM crops, according to the Organic Centre
Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at The Organic Centre said GM seed prices had risen so sharply they were starting to rival fertilisers and agrochemicals as the most expensive crop input.
Farmers purchasing Monsanto's Roundup Ready 2 Soyabeans in 2010 would have to pay 42% more than they paid for the 2009 product, said Dr Benbrook, who added that seed prices were now three times the historic norm.
Maize growers were facing similar price hikes, fuelled
partly by seed companies introducing multiple traits into their varieties, he
told a Soil Association conference in
"The more traits they include, the more they can justify charging," said Dr Benbrook. For example, Monsanto's SmartStax maize, which is the first GM variety to include eight individual genes for herbicide tolerance and insect-protection, will be over twice the price of conventional seed when it is launched in 2010, he said. "For farmers to accept this increase it will have to perform very well indeed.
"The basic issue boils down to whether the high and rising prices of GM seeds are justified," said Dr Benbrook. "This has to be through increased yields, lower pest management costs, or a combination of both."
Unsurprisingly, these increases also had a striking effect on farm incomes. "Farmers planting RR2 Soyabeans in 2010 will commit a projected 22% of gross income per acre to seed purchase," said Dr Benbrook. "This is a substantial increase from last year's 16.4%."
Relatively high crop values were supporting this inflated seed price, he said. "But as prices drop we will start to see problems."
Growers who were tempted to move back to conventional seed
could find it difficult to get hold of, he noted. "There is a lack of
non-GM seed in the
Texas
(Texas
A&M) – UVALDE – Dr. Daniel Leskovar, a Texas AgriLife Research plant physiologist at the Texas AgriLife Research and
"This research can aid in the successful production and possibly even the further profitability of some vegetable crops by producing high-quality, more adaptive plants that will establish well," Leskovar said. "It could also enable some vegetable plants to produce beyond their regular season or succeed within a stressful growing environment."
An expert in vegetable physiology, Leskovar said his research has been "centered in the identification and understanding of plant adaptation mechanisms to temperature, water and biological stresses as part of an integrated vegetable cropping system." He and his collaborators already have been successful in creating heartier pepper, tomato, watermelon and cantaloupe seedlings for transplantation.
Leskovar has been joined in his
research efforts by other AgriLife Research
personnel, including researchers from the Texas AgriLife
Research and
"Our work has primarily involved modulating naturally
occurring growth regulators in vegetable plants," Leskovar
said. "One of these is abscisic acid, or
"Abscisic acid affects the closing of plant stomates and controls plant physiology such as leaf transpiration," he said. "The hormone also slows plant growth temporarily, which is important for producing compact transplants in commercial nurseries."
In many southern regions of the U.S, high temperatures, dry winds and rapidly drying soil after planting are detrimental to or impair the early growth of vegetable transplants, Leskovar said.
"Results of our previous research suggested abscisic acid was an effective tool to modulate transplant shoot growth and enhance drought-stress tolerance of several vegetable species," he said. "Now our research is being targeted toward foliar spray application to control growth of mature vegetable transplants in the greenhouse."
Leskovar noted vegetable plants often suffer transplant shock because of an imbalance between water loss through transpiration and water absorption through the roots, typically causing plant wilting. He added that windy conditions or high temperatures can accelerate water loss.
"Abscisic acid closes the stomates and reduces water loss through transpiration, preventing further moisture loss in times of low water availability," he said.
Research efforts to date have shown that external application of abscisic acid to cabbage, watermelon and pepper transplants had reduced undesirable excess shoot growth during plant development in the greenhouse environment, Leskovar said. They also show that its application on pepper, tomato and artichoke seedlings was superior to that of other commercial "film-forming antitranspirants" in improving overall plant water status.
"Practices that reduce plant transpiration have the potential to enhance stand establishment, thus conserving soil moisture and reducing irrigation frequency," Leskovar explained. "Abscisic acid appears to be useful for conditioning vegetable seedlings to withstand temporary stress from water deficiency and to improve stand development under stressful field conditions."
He said vegetable transplants quickly recovered their water potential, stomatal efficiency and photosynthetic rates, and resumed their growth after a short period of water stress in response to the external application of the hormone.
Leskovar added that the work he
and his fellow researchers have been doing has been supported through the
interest of the industry and cooperation with commercial greenhouses in the
"Another aspect of our current research is
investigating the application of gibberellic acid, or
GA, to artichoke plants so they can produce in
For the past several years, Leskovar
has been investigating the viability of growing artichokes as an alternative
crop in parts of
Artichokes are normally planted in late fall, so earlier
planting can be a hit-or-miss proposition for
"We can mimic the effects of cold weather on the plant by introducing gibberellic acid as a natural treatment that will fulfill the plant's requirement for bolting during warmer-than-needed temperatures," he said.
Leskovar noted that gibberellic acid is applied during commercial artichoke production in other parts of the world, particularly during the summer months.
"We're using natural compounds that are part of existing plant physiology to improve vegetables and make them less susceptible to different stress factors," he said. "The process isn't new, but there's still a lot to learn about the response mechanisms in plants, the best way and amounts to apply, and what effect these will have on a variety of vegetables during different stages of development."
Leskovar said the research will be useful as part of an integrated cropping system strategy for developing more stress-tolerant vegetable plants which can be grown not only in Texas, but also other southern states with similar environmental and climatic challenges.
Honeybees use deadly odor to kill siblings
(wired.com) – Here’s one way to get back at your sibling: Release a deadly odor. Honeybee researchers have discovered the first example of a pheromone that shortens the lifespan of other family members — in this case, older sisters.
“Just one little sniff can change your life,” said biologist Gro Amdam of Arizona State University, co-author of a study published Dec. 1 in The Journal of Experimental Biology. “That’s kind of cool.”
Previous research has shown that the presence of larvae in colonies reduces adult bees’ energy stores and shortens the honeybee lifespan. Scientists had also found that larvae release what is known as a “brood pheromone,” which causes adults to consume more pollen to keep up with larval food demand. But little else was known about this rare chemical concoction found only in bees.
When Amdam and colleagues fed synthetic pheromone-laced syrup to adult bees, they found something surprising: It depleted vital stores of a protein called vitellogenin from bees’ fat tissue and shortened their lives dramatically. The life expectancy of entire colonies dropped below 200 days, making it difficult for honeybees to last through winter.
“Just one whiff of the pheromone has the same effect as if
the brood were present. That’s pretty mind-boggling,” said
beesThe pheromone causes vitellogenin to move from fat tissue into the blood, where it is transported to the head glands and converted into a jelly that older sisters feed to the larvae. In effect, the adult workers give up their energy stores to rear their replacements. “It’s the group behavior that matters in the colony, not the life of single bees,” Amdam said. “In that way, you can sometimes think of bees as a mob.”
“It’s the most striking example of colony-level selection I know of,” Wheeler said.
Vitellogenin is common across egg-laying species, and its link to health and survival may very well exist in other species. “Nature came up with this protein at some point and stuck with it,” Amdam said. “This tells us it must be important for life in general.”
For a long time, scientists thought vitellogenin was a relatively uninteresting protein that only provides nutrients to embryos, Amdam said. But she recently found it acts as an antioxidant and regulates immune responses, aging and foraging behavior in bees.
“The direct linkage between the sensory system and aging is absolutely fascinating,” Wheeler said. A vitellogenin expert, Wheeler said it’s not known whether this protein affects aging in other species, or how it works, but this study provides the launch pad for future research. It also serves as a warning for beekeepers, who sometimes use brood pheromone because it increases crop pollination. The study suggests this practice could lead to colony collapse.
Citation: “Brood pheromone suppresses physiology of extreme longevity in honeybees (Apis mellifera),” by B. Smedal, M. Brynem, C.D. Kreibich and G.V. Amdam. Journal of Experimental Biology, vol 212, Dec. 1, 2009.
Copenhagen
William Wheeler and Anna-Katarina Gravgaard
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
COPENHAGEN – The calls for climate action begin at the
airport, where the thousands of arriving journalists, negotiators and observers
are greeted by billboards showcasing eco-friendly hotels, drowning polar bears
and stern warnings of impending climate catastrophe. One features a polar bear
alone on an ice floe. "The
But amid the throngs camped out around the entrance to the summit venue, a carnival atmosphere reigns. On Monday, while Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen addressed delegates at the opening ceremony, teenaged activists outside chanted: "It's hot in here, theres too much carbon in the atmosphere." Nearby is a 12-foot-tall statue of a grim, hooded figure beside an electronic billboard with a red digital display showing a growing tally of climate refugees and carbon emissions.
Inside the venue, past the metal detectors, delegates from 192 nations are involved in negotiations. Thousands of journalists are there as well, milling around the conference grounds and jockeying for space at computer stations. Most watch the proceedings on closed-circuit television, writing stories from rows of banquet tables lined end to end.
"It is our mission," Mr. Rasmussen continued,
"to come to the aid of those who already suffer and to deliver a long-term
solution to the mounting problem of global warming. This is our task. This is
why we need a strong and ambitious climate-change agreement here in
The hard part
On Tuesday, negotiators, who have been intimately involved in setting the agendas and terms of the various blocs, continued their efforts to find common ground on the issues of who will cut greenhouse gases and by how much, how much it will cost, and who will pick up the tab. Among the subjects of disagreement are appeals from developing countries for money and technology from industrialized nations to help reduce emissions and adapt to the unavoidable impacts of some degree of climate change.
In a press conference Tuesday, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, urged the conference to produce an agreement that can be put into action immediately.
"That's what this conference needs to be about -
turning words into real action the day the conference is over ... negotiators
need to come up with, over the following week, solid proposals that can
constitute the foundation stones of an agreed outcome in
Negotiators have six days, he said, until their government ministers arrive, then two additional days until they are joined by more than 100 heads of state. Some things will undoubtedly have to wait for the ministers' arrival, he said, including "rich countries targets and how they can be made more ambitious," as well as the "question of finance."
But Mr. de Boer said he was "confident" that the
summit can produce some agreements, such as more money to help developing
countries confront climate change. "My challenge to people is to get the
basic work done in the first week," he said. "Make sure that the
foundation stones are in place, make sure that we have clarity on what needs to
be done on adaptation, mitigation, technology, finance, capacity building and
forests to ensure that action begins once the
The pessimists
But not everyone is optimistic about what lies ahead.
On Saturday, a large demonstration is expected to move from
central
In a YouTube video called "COP15 - Call For Protest," the organization NTAC, or Never Trust A COP, shows pictures of burning streets and black-clad activists, which the Danish press has suggested means violence during the summit. Organizers have asked NTAC not to participate in the demonstrations, according to Jyllands-Posten.
Meanwhile, Danish police are getting ready for the biggest
standoff in their history. In an abandoned warehouse, 15 minutes outside the
city center, the police have made room for 3,500 potential troublemakers.
Forces from all over the country have been brought to
The New York Times reports that
"Resist the false solutions of the COP15 climate talks! ... See you on the streets!" reads a recent statement from Climate Justice Action, which has vowed to "take over the [summit] for one day and transform it into a People's Assembly."
On Dec. 16, the group plans to try to take over the
End Transmission