Stronger Plants, Stronger Science, and Stronger Communication
Written by Matt DiLeo I recently had the opportunity to visit the fabled heart of the USDA-ARS empire: Beltsville. I heard all about the tornado that knocked down all the campus trees, smashed in the greenhouses and threw doors down hallways a few years ago, visited their food sensory lab (a controlled environment where fruit samples…
Written by Matt DiLeo It’s an exciting time in genetic engineering! I’ve long been bored by the simplicity of our contemporary transgenic crops and the single-minded focus on agronomic traits. Dropping in an herbicide or pest resistance gene is good for the environment and the farmer, but it doesn’t visibly benefit the consumer very much…
Marc Pacchioli, known as Crophugger on Twitter, has written an excellent post on secondary plant metabolites on HubPages: Natural Plant Chemicals: Vital Nutrients for a Healthy Diet, Natural Chemical Arsenal, or Both? What are these chemicals that plants produce? What are they for? For the answers to these and many more questions about plant secondary…