Reports that US ‘organic’ vegetable growers could be contaminating their produce with antibiotic-laden manure raises questions over the quality of the £40m of ‘organic’ produce imported into the UK from the US every year.
Certified organic farmers in the US are allowed to use raw manure from livestock regularly treated with antibiotics and drugs. Jennifer Rohn reports in Chemistry & Industry magazine that nearly 60% of US organics growers do just that. Plants grown using this manur
The University of York is to lead a new group set up to explore the potential of products from the biosphere to reduce the global economy’s dependence on fossil reserves and oil.
Bioscience for Business, a Knowledge Transfer Network, chaired by Professor Dianna Bowles, Director of CNAP, is a combination of research expertise and commercial know-how, bringing together members with interests in micro-organisms, land plants and marine and freshwater organisms, and their industria
Scientists at the John Innes Centre (JIC) [1] in Norwich, UK, report today a breakthrough in understanding how crop plants use daylength to ensure they flower at the right time of year. In an article published in the international journal Science, they describe a gene that controls how barley reacts to the length of the day and thus controls when it flowers.
Most plants flower at a particular time of the year and researchers have known for a long time that plants use cues from their
Nematodes, such as the stem nematode, and fungi, such as white rot, are particularly harmful for onion crops in the Netherlands: they cause rot. Soil samples are investigated to detect this; a labour-intensive and expensive operation. Together with the Laboratory for Nematology (University of Wageningen) the company Blgg has developed a molecular technique to detect the stem nematode and white rot in soil samples.
Agricultural laboratory Blgg will start using the new system in N
Students at The University of Nottingham will be able to stargaze at distant galaxies to learn more about the origins of life, thanks to a giant, state-of-the-art telescope being unveiled more than 6,000 miles away.
The Nottingham chemistry and physics students will be able to use the internet to access images captured by the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) — dubbed Africa’s Giant Eye — without having to visit its site at Sutherland, 400 km north of Cape Town, in South
Plant pathologists from The American Phytopathological Society (APS) report that citrus greening is spreading faster than expected and encourage growers and homeowners to aid in the detection process by alerting the appropriate agricultural officials if they suspect they have infected trees. Citrus greening, also known as huanglongbing, was recently discovered in samples collected from trees in South Florida.
Although citrus greening is not expected to have a major impact on the supply of
In a refreshing twist, humans have been shown to be part of the solution to the issue of decreasing genetic diversity in our world rather than part of the problem. Global genetic diversity is being eradicated through any number of human-driven activities, the removal of large scale forests key among them.
Now researchers at Washington University in St. Louis report that farmers and families in Central America actually have saved genetic variation in the jocote (ho-CO-tay), (S
A new report on initiatives taken to further sustainable forest management in Canada is now available.
The National Forest Strategy Coalition has just released a report on its accomplishments from 2003 to 2005. These include the establishment of a national council to coordinate and enhance research and development efforts among government and industry; new strategies for dealing with forest threats, such as insects, fire and climate change; and collaborative efforts to advance
A growing market for biodiesel fuels is heating up interest in canola among Texas producers.
Dr. Brent Bean, Texas Cooperative Extension agronomist here, said he quit participating in the National Winter Canola Variety Trials some time back when interest waned. But he’s participating once again due to calls from several producers.
David Bordovsky, Texas Agriculture Experiment Station research scientist in Chillicothe, said he hasn’t had a lot of producer interest, but
Duke University engineers are developing technology that may enable physicians to someday use high frequency ultrasound waves both to visualize the heart’s interior in three dimensions and then selectively destroy heart tissue with heat to correct arrhythmias.
“No one else has developed a way for ultrasound to combine therapy and imaging in a catheter, let alone 3-D imaging,” said Stephen Smith, the biomedical engineering professor who heads the project at Duke’s Pratt
Interesting facts have been discovered in phytoimmunity sphere by the Russian-Belorus group of biochemists in the framework of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and Belorus Foundation for Basic Research projects. To protect themselves from pathogenic fungi, which penetrate plant tissues with the help of proteinase proteins, vegetables produce inhibitors to these proteinases. A peculiar “arms race” is taking place between them.
Animals’ immune system cells are aimed at resista
A landmark discussion paper, published by the Agricultural Institute of Canada, proposes that the GST or some other levy be applied to groceries to help achieve sustainable agriculture and staunch a potentially disastrous collapse of smaller sized farms.
The paper (online at www.aic.ca/issues/AIC_discussion_paper_Final_ENG.pdf), commissioned by Canada’s foremost agricultural institute to help catalyze a national roadmap to sustainable agriculture, also calls for governments to us
Roots are crucial for the development of strong, healthy crops. But until recently, exactly which genes are involved in the development of roots was still a mystery. Scientists from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to Ghent University have now analyzed a complete plant genome in order to identify the genes that are essential for the formation of capillary roots. For the first time, they are unraveling the genetic basis for the branching of the root system
The world’s major rice-producing countries – including the two most populous nations, China and India – have emphasized the importance of continuing to develop new rice varieties to guarantee Asia’s food security and support the region’s economic development.
Rice helps feed almost half Earth’s population on a daily basis, and just as important provides vital employment and income for billions of poor people, most of them in Asia. But, at a recent meeting in Indonesia of the regio
How does a wound in certain plants like roses and grapevines develop into a tumor? The answer appears to lie in a common soil bacterium that is able to “smell” the wound and speed up the infection process.
Cornell University microbiologist Steve Winans says that the pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens enters the wound where it copies the genes required for infection, which can slip into the plant’s cells and their nuclear DNA, causing a cancer-like disease called crown gall. The
The classic model for explaining the biosynthesis of starch in plant leaves has been seriously called in to question. While to date the accepted belief has been that starch biosynthesis is produced solely in the chloroplast, biologist Nora Alonso Casajús’ PhD provides evidence to show that the greatest part of the precursor molecule in starch biosynthesis – known as ADPG – accumulates in the cytosol of the plants. This finding has meant a great advance in the race to obtain vegetables that can
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