Month: October 2008
Purple tomatoes!
As I write this, I munch on organic blue corn chips and homemade pico de gallo, made with purple peppers from Small Potatoes Farm (along with heirloom tomatoes and flat leaf Italian parsley and with a glass of local wine from Summerset Winery, yum!). Why choose blue and purple? Anthocyanins, of course. These natural plant…
Integration is the key
Sir Gordon Conway spoke on Monday night at Iowa State. He is a champion for integrated farming, when most people are blinded to at least half of the options. This was a sober account of the problems we face and the solutions that are needed. The silver lining, though, is that solutions are out there. If…
Who wants to be a genetic engineer?
The Univeristy of Nebraska Lincoln has a wonderful site called Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary. It is an educational site with beginner and advanced articles in English and Spanish. Topics include herbicides, plant breeding, and genetic engineering. They include power point type videos on a variety of topics. My favorite is: Who wants to be…
Poster competition woes
One topic of this blog is the graduate student experience, with the aim of passing on a little advice to prospective graduate students. The lesson for today is: stand up for yourself. Today was the Seventh Annual Norman Borlaug Lectureship Poster Competition For Graduate and Undergraduate Students. I was very excited about the competition this year, because…
Criticisms of genetic engineering
Alan McHughen, plant biotechnologist at UC Riverside and author of Pandora’s Picnic Basket, is one of the professors participating in Debating Science, helping the students to develop an informational website about bioethics that may one day be relesased to the public. He recently shared some insights with the group that he has allowed me to…
Things to look forward to
On Monday, October 13, the Norman Borlaug Lecture will be presented at Iowa State by Sir Gordon Conway, with the title: The Global Agricultural Crisis of the 21st Century. This will be my second year in the accompanying poster competition, displaying my work on teosinte and tripsicum. Sir Conway’s bio from the World Food Prize website…