It sounds like science fiction, but New Mexico State University researchers are testing advanced eye-scanning technology on cattle as part of a national tracking system for animal health.
“Retinal scans are part of a growing technological trend in cattle identification,” said Manny Encinias, livestock specialist at NMSU’s Clayton Livestock Research Center. “It painlessly flashes a beam of light into the eyeball and records the pattern of veins in the eye.”
Each reti
Finnish farm income in 2005 will the lowest in years, according to provisional figures from MTT Agrifood Research Finland. Total income for the farming industry is down by 8% compared with 2004 mainly due to higher input costs.
Farm income for this year is provisionally forecast at €980 million, compared with €1.07 billion in 2004, and an average of €1.10 billion for the period 2000-2004. The farm income figure calculated by MTT indicates compensation for the labour input and capital investe
Ground left fallow in the High Plains to store soil moisture between crops may be better off with a legume crop such as cowpeas, according to a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researcher.
Dr. Bill Payne of Amarillo said he is trying to make the region’s wheat-sorghum-fallow cropping system more sustainable by getting rid of the fallow component.
Leaving the land idle for one cropping season is a way to retain soil moisture for the following crop. However,
In this study the possibilities of the North American oak (Quercus rubra L.) as an afforestation alternative in the Basque Country Autonomous Community were investigated. The aim was to expand the range of possibilities in forestry production, avoiding monospecific plantations but, at the same time, meeting the needs of the current economy on the basis of sustainable development.
The study centred on 6 plantations of various ages in Bizkaia, firstly studying the wealth of epigeous
Professor Ramón Barrio´s research team at the Department of Analytical Chemistry of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has developed a series of new analytical methodologies in order to tackle the the problem of the persistence of certain commonly used pesticicides in ecosystems such as forests and agricultural land.
The characterisation of pesticicide residues in various matrixes and in kinetic studies on degradation as a function of meteorological parameters provided us wi
Plant Research International, part of Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands, together with CatchMabs, have announced a cooperative study to apply iMab technology to detect mycotoxins in food and plant pathogens in plant material. The partners will advance the work for applications at the nano-level.
CatchMabs develops ‘industrial Molecular Affinity Bodies’ (iMabs) – proteins capable of making highly specific and exceptionally strong combinations of previo
Swedes eat on average twice as much meat, and considerably more fruit and vegetables in the early 21st century than in the 1870s. Nevertheless, the surface area required to produce our food has decreased, measured per person. But this decrease is largely based on non-sustainable use of resources.
How did our eating habits, and food production, change between 1870 and 2000? And how have these changes in turn affected our environment? Tina Schmid Neset has studied these questions
Bovines of different ages need different kinds of social environments. Calves enjoy a safe environment with other familiar members of their species. Heiferson the other hand, can benefit from the social experience resulting from being introduced to a new group.
In her thesis, Senior Scientist Satu Raussi from Agrifood Research Finland observes that calves brought up in pairs show fewer symptoms of stress than those that have reared in individual pens, although they are a little m
Humans have cultivated potatoes for millennia, but there has been great controversy about the ubiquitous vegetable’s origins. This week, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, a team led by a USDA potato taxonomist stationed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has for the first time demonstrated a single origin in southern Peru for the cultivated potato.
The scientists analyzed DNA markers in 261 wild and 98 cultivated potato varieties to assess w
Libya is looking to date palm and olive crops – valuable trading commodities in the Mediterranean – as potential ways of supplementing its oil revenues. As part of this forward investment, the Libyan Date Palm and Olive Development and Improvement Corporation wanted to ensure it had enough ‘elite plant material’ to guarantee a steady flow of plants from their micro-propagation units near the Mediterranean coast.
Plant experts from the University of the West of England are helping
New research just released in the September issue of Plant Disease suggests that weeds commonly found in California’s wine country may enable the spread of Pierce’s disease of grapes, one of the most destructive plant diseases affecting grapes.
Pierce’s disease is caused by Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterium transmitted by sharpshooters and spittlebugs. In response to outbreaks of Pierce’s disease in central California, plant pathologists studied 29 weed species commonly found in
A hanging basket style device is at the heart of a plan by researchers at the University of Warwick to harness the sex drive of a major pest of fruit orchards as a weapon to spread a virus to kill that very same pest. The device allows growers to selectively target the pest with a virus that kills its larvae without killing other beneficial insects.
The researchers at Warwick HRI, the horticultural research arm of the University of Warwick, have devised a hanging basket style di
Russian researchers have literally suggested burn to ashes thorns and other vegetative admixtures in the sheep’s fleece. It should be noted that that burning to ashes is done intricately, so that the future fiber only benefited from it –becoming solid, elastic and snow-white. The information on this development is placed in the section of promising projects on the site of the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC).
An ingenious fleece cleansing technology has been de
Mechanically-isolated wood fibres show several different properties in comparison to chemically-isolated fibres. This is one of the most recent results of a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna. The project yields significant findings on the structural changes in wood fibres after exposure to moisture and tension. The current results are important for both the structural analysis of wood as well as for the invest
Weeding is a major problem for ecological growers since it is both expensive and time-consuming. New robot technology may have the solution. In a new dissertation, Björn Åstrand, from Halmstad University in Sweden, presents how weeds can be removed mechanically -with the fully automated robot Lukas.
In ecological cultivation, weeding is performed manually, entailing not only economic burdens for many growers but also logistic ones -it’s hard to find people willing to do this wor
Researchers at the Botany Department of the University of Navarra, Ana María de Miguel y Miriam de Román, have undertaken a study on the use of mycorrhizzae-introduced plants (colonised with the “Tuber melanosporum” fungus or black Perigord truffle), on surface land areas affected by fires.
Taking advantage of reforestation work carried out by Viveros y Repoblaciones de Navarra in the recovery of the Nazar kermes oak forest (Estella-Lizarra region), a typical Mediterranean-type
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