Archived News
Year of the Potato
Here at the HQ of the WSU Potato Research Group, every year is a year of the potato. We tend to forget that most folks look upon the venerable tuber as the lowly and humble spud--albeit one that much of the world depends upon as a food source. The rep of the spud may get a bit of polish soon, though, as the UN has declared 2008 the Year of the Potato. You can read a bit more about the declaration at Wikipedia, as well as follow the links there to other sources of information. Naturally, check back here as we discover more of what this means for spuds--and dream up stellar fun and games in promotion of potato research. [08/31/06]
Google Scholar
Anybody doing research, be ye grower, student, or faculty, should know about Google Scholar. In my experience it's better, frankly, than most of the commercial, proprietary databases you'll find in libraries although, perhaps obviously, Google doesn't have access to all the private holdings of some of those databases. Now Google Scholar has gotten even better, with a "smart" keyword enhancement. As Distinguished Google Engineer Luiz Barroso writes, "when I can find the search terms that are specific enough to
narrow down to the subject I'm interested in and yet general enough to
not miss relevant articles" Scholar works particularly well. But when those keywords are absent (Barroso uses the example of John Nash's famous papers on "game theory" which, frustratingly enough for any research in search mode, never use the term "game theory" for the simple reason that it hadn't been invented yet) or different, "which often happens when a field is very young," searches can yield zilch. In typical Google fashion, its engineers have smartened up Scholar's search routine: "For every Google Scholar search result, we try to automatically
determine which articles in our repository are most closely related to
it. You can see a list of these articles by clicking the "Related Articles" link that appears next to each result. The list of related articles is ranked primarily by how similar these articles are to the original result, but also takes into account the relevance of each paper." [08/24/06]
Unhitch that Animal and Polyunsaturate Yourself
Boing Boing asks why French fries taste so good.... when fried in horse fat. This sounds like something from a apocalyptic Philip K. Dick novel (the science fiction writer always insisted his German-and-Latin-derived name means "horse-lover fat"), but, according to Chez Pim (admittedly "not an arbiter of taste"), it's true, perhaps because horse is rich in polyunsaturated fats. Would Homer Simpson say, "Mmmmm.... Horse fat"? [08/23/06]
Immigration and Agriculture
"The debate rages on over illegal immigration and immigration reform as the labor shortage in American agriculture continues to grow," American Fruit Grower magazine editorializes. "This year immigration reform is one of the most talked about issues on Capitol Hill and throughout the United States, and the possibility of achieving reform is more within reach than ever. However, it's also one of the most divisive issues in American history and certainly in American agriculture." The editorial also offers resources for taking action with a model letter to the editor, updates on immigration in the news and in legislatures. [08/23/06]
More on Less
More ideas are coming out of the conference at the Stockholm
International Water Institute
(see "Not a Drop to Waste," below). Anders Berntell, head of SIWI, suggests labeling food to show how much it took to produce it. A report in Scientific American says that "Typically, a calorie of food demands a liter of water (0.2
Imperial gallons) to produce, according to U.N. estimates. But
a kilo (2.2 lbs.) of industrially produced meat needs 10,000
liters while a kilo of grain requires just 500-4,000 liters." [08/22/06]
Not a Drop to Waste
A new study described in Nature News
says that "One-third of the world's population is living in water-scarce areas" according to "scientists behind a 5-year analysis of global water resources." This news presents interesting problems for agriculturists, as "Agriculture consumes a vast amount of our water, accounting for about 74% of the total water withdrawn from rivers, lakes and aquifers." The scarcity uncovered by the new study wasn't expected to arrive, according to previous studies, until at least 2025: " 'This won't be in decades: it's here now,' says Frank Rijsberman, director general of the International Water Management Institute in Battaramulla, Sri Lanka." Any number of authors over the past few years have predicted that water will soon be more valuable than gold; that time appears to have already arrived for much of the planet. " 'People need to focus on getting more value from water,' says Rijsberman. He argues that water is usually seen as a free resource, but needs to be treated as a limited commodity, and valued accordingly." The 5-year study involved the participation of over 700 scientists from around the world; Scientific American also has a report on the study, which was released this week at a conference in Stockholm. [08/21/06]
Where Diversity Reigns
According to a new study published in this week's Science, and described at Nature News, "It is well known that having a number of different plant species in a field can help to promote insect diversity, boost the plants' productivity and improve the overall ecological health of an area. Now it seems that genetic diversity within a species has similar effects. The findings could lead to better habitat restoration and agriculture." [08/21/06]
Figs First?
Fig trees may have been domesticated almost a thousand years before grains, archeobotanists Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University and Mordechai E. Kislev and Anat Hartmann of Bar-Ilan University say. The researchers found well-preserved figs at a site a few miles south of Jericho; the ancient figs have been dated to about 11,400 years before present. In an article published in the journal Science, the trio say that the figs were pollinated without insect intervention and that the variety indicates that they were selectively bred by humans. This exciting find has been widely covered in the press; a good place to learn more is here. [08/11/06]
Psst! Pass It On!
"Plants under stress not only activate their own defences, but also manage to pass on a possible protective strategy to their descendants. That's the surprising conclusion of a study published online today by Nature." Read abut this surprising discovery in Nature News. [08/07/06]
Organic Farm Helps Feed the Needy
WSU's Organic Farm donates produce every week "to needy Whitman County families," WSU Today reports.
Insects Provide Gigabuck Services
Bees and other insects "improve our environment and lives in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand," says entomologist John Losey of Cornell University. Scientific American reports that "Losey and his colleague Mace Vaughan of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation undertook the task of estimating the monetary value of insect activity in the U.S. Confining themselves to four activities that could be rigorously calculated--processing cattle dung, controlling pests, pollinating plants and serving as food for wildlife--the scientists derived conservative figures for the value of these services." The number arrived at by Losey and colleagues: 57 billion dollars. Now that's a buzz.
Climate Change for Agriculturists
We've heard that increasing levels of CO2 are good news for agriculturists, if nobody else. But a new study indicates that "Increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide may not be as helpful to crops as previously thought.... As global temperatures rise, soil moisture levels fall. Laboratory experiments suggested that the crop losses resulting from this loss of moisture would be offset by a boost in fertilization from rising levels of carbon dioxide. Now field studies show that carbon dioxide's beneficial effects are not nearly as strong in real crop-growing environments." Read the story in Scientific American online.
The Fruit Connection
Sugars in fruit could be used to make plastic, according to an article in today's Nature online. [6/29/06]
No More Nitrogen?
WSU Today reports that "Researchers at Washington State University and in the United Kingdom have announced a discovery that may someday allow the world’s farmers to decrease their dependence on nitrogen fertilizers, resulting in billions in savings to farmers and a reduction in the amount of nitrogen pollution that has already turned some waterways into dead zones." Read the full story in WSU Today and a similar one in Nature online. [6/28/06]
WSU Potato Field Day has been scheduled for Friday, June 23, Othello WA. Get directions to the WSU Research Farm in Othello.
Fertilizer for African Countries to Spark New Green Revolution
"African leaders have approved wide-ranging measures to improve farmers' access to fertilizer, in a bid to kick-start a 'green revolution' and revive the continent's ailing agriculture," reports Nature online. "Government representatives from more than 40 African nations agreed to remove taxes on the fertilizer trade between countries on the continent, in order to improve distribution in the region. They also pledged to promote the use of 'microdosing' — an intensive technique of fertilizing individual plants rather than blanket spraying, which should help to ensure maximum yield from scant resources and minimize damaging environmental effects." [6/14/06]
Jack London, Proto-Organic Farmer
Best known as the author of Call of the Wild and White Fang, Jack London was also an early practitioner of organic farming. [6/14/06]
New WSU Ag Degree, Organic Major Approved
Washington State University has received approval from the state Higher Education Coordinating Board to offer a Bachelor's of Science degree in Agriculture and Food Systems starting this fall. Five majors will be offered, including the nation's first major in organic agriculture systems. You can learn more about the new majors here.
Pesticide Information - En Español
The EPA has launched a Spanish-language portal to their Web site which provides users with information on pesticides and much more. [5/15/06]
Dinner by Demographics - in this week's WSU Today, an article on exporting food to India. [5/12/06]
Nematode in Idaho Results in Import Ban - "Japan has banned all fresh U.S. potato imports, and Canada and Mexico all fresh potato imports from Idaho, after a microscopic wormlike pest called the potato cyst nematode was found on an eastern Idaho farm" in April, the AP reports. "The discovery of the pest was the first time this particular nematode has been detected in the United States, said Pat Takasugi, director of Idaho's Department of Agriculture.... 'We have definitely caught this in the early stages,' Takasugi said." Nevertheless, Potato Information & Exchange has added a number of links with information about potato nematodes.
Wild Rockies Field Institute - the schedule of summer classes is now online: "students learn how to think critically about environmental and social issues; connect with the landscape; and consider their relationship to both natural and human communities. All of our courses are taught while traveling under our own power in the backcountry, and college credit is offered through the University of Montana. Course areas range from Alaska to Mexico."
Early Farming Communities Often Ate Weeds, Other Wild Plants, Archaeologist Finds - "Thousands of years after the advent of agriculture, ancient farmers in India routinely foraged for wild plants — even weeds — when times got tough, a UCLA archaeologist has found."
Fertilizing Barren Soil - a report in today's Nature online says that "African countries must boost the fertility of the soil underfoot if they want to fill empty bellies.... Farmland in Africa has been robbed of chemicals such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are vital for plant growth. And these have not been replaced with organic and chemical fertilizers, as they are in most other countries, because of the expense."
Defender
The American Journal of Potato Research has just published the paper by Novy and others on the new "long white" variety known as Defender (Am. J. Potato Res 83:9-19 [2006]). The new variety is highly resistant to Late Blight, the scourge of the potato industry. For a reminder of the importance of science and research to the industry it's worthwhile to reread James Zuiches op-ed piece, "French Fries, Research and the Economy."
Send in the clones: A95109-1 gets big press for a humble spud. Featured at the Washington State Potato Conference potato bar, you can read about this cultivar with moxy here, here, and here.
Richard Hansen, Idaho potato farmer and archeologist of a "prehistoric kingdom in the Guatemalan jungle." [02/02/06]
WSU Licenses Potato Sprout Inhibitor
Washington State University has signed a licensing agreement with the American Vanguard Corp. to commercialize a new class of potato sprout inhibitors developed by Rick Knowles, professor of horticulture and landscape architecture and scientist in WSU's Agricultural Research Center. "This research has the potential to have major impact on the way that the potato growers in Washington and the world control sprouting," said Keith Jones, WSU director of Intellectual Property. Read the rest of the story in WSU Today.
A New Wiki for Biologists
OpenWetWare "is an effort to promote the sharing of information, know-how, and wisdom among researchers and groups who are working in biology & biological engineering. OWW provides a place for labs, individuals, and groups to organize their own information and collaborate with others easily and efficiently."
New Genetic Research on Peruvian Origins of Potatoes
"The first cultivated potato was grown in what is now Peru, researchers say, and it originated only once, not several times, as some experts propose... 'This result shows the potato originated one time and from a species that was distributed in southern Peru,' says Professor David Spooner, a US Department of Agriculture researcher at the University of Wisconsin, who led the study."
Sustainable Agriculture, Communities, and Environments in the Pacific Northwest
WSU Tri-cities announces a symposium on "Sustainable Agriculture, Communities, and Environments in the Pacific Northwest," to be held May 18-20, 2006, at WSU Tri-Cities. A copy of the call for papers may be found on the symposium website.
Pint-sized Plant Research Bears Fruit (and Vegetables)
Sept. 29, 2005: Dr. B.W. (Joe) Poovaiah and his co-researchers at WSU have published results of research on "size engineering" plants in this week's issue of Nature. The goal is to develop plants that expend a greater portion of their energy on producing seeds and fruit rather than stems and leaves. Check out WSU Today for more info.
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