Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
Welcome to the 29th edition of Mendel’s Garden, the monthly one-stop-shop for the best the blogosphere has on Genetics. I have hosted the Garden a couple times before on my personal blog, but this month we find ourselves on Biofortified. This is a group blog on plant genetics and genetic engineering, to try to sprinkle…
Are you a backyard breeder? Do you want to be? Well with this video, now you can! Well, I think if you are a plant breeding student, a breeder looking to train a new workforce, or someone who’s really just curious about how you can possibly make seeds to grow ‘seedless’ watermelons, you’ll like this…
In Something tastes bad…, I questioned IATP’s use of the Env. Health paper Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: measured concentrations in food product sugar. The paper described an experiment that took place in 2005. Renee Dufault, the lead author, described how she obtained samples of high fructose corn syrup and tested them for mercury. When she…
Read More “What’s in the corn syrup? Guest Post by Renee Dufault” »
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…
The Rodale Institute, major proponent of organic agriculture, is offering a free online at-your-own-pace course that focuses on the transition from conventional to organic farming. They also have a calculator that farmers can use to find how much more (or less, I suppose) their farm can make if they transition to organic, given their specific…
Vegetarian Times often lures me into buying an issue with their delicious cover recipes, like this amazing looking “Mediterranean pressed picnic sandwich”. The recipes are great, but I wish they would stick with what they know best. This month’s “carrot & stick” column contained the following: “STICKS TO American Crystal Sugar Company, based in Moorhead,…
I usually shy away from pessimism, but if you think food prices are high now, wait until the harvest in 2008. Flooding caused by unrelenting rain has been hard on Iowa’s corn and soy fields – and the summer is just beginning. After all this rain, late summer droughts are predicted (just when the grain…
Senator Joe Biden of Delaware has some compelling things to say about food shortages, as posted on the Miami Herald site. He calls for increased funding for research, as well as using economic and political policies to alleviate future crises. I just hope he has the courage and skill to implement these ideas. The entire piece can be found below the cut. Hat tip to Parke Wilde at US Food Policy for finding it.
Good news from Africa – “Scientists and crop researchers at Kenya´s Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) developed the new wheat seeds over the past decade. Through a process called ‘mutation plant breeding’, they applied radiation-based techniques to modify crop characteristics and traits.” In 2001, KARI plant breeders released Njoro-BW1, their first mutant wheat variety. It is…
Read More “But, how safe is it? On transgenics, cisgenics, and mutants.” »
The NY Times has had some very good articles on the rice shortages. “A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice” has some first hand information about conditions in Australia that are worsening the shortages in Southeast Asia. Asia has its own problems, including floods and food-unfriendly government policies, as I described in “Rising…