Agricuture News - February 2010 Archives

Where does the fluid go? (2/28/2010)

Combined mechanisms of transport have important applications -- transport of nutrients across cell membranes in plants and animals, the aeration of agricultural soils, performance of chemical reactors, the design of membranes for desalting brackish water, and the design of clay membranes for retaining dangerous chemicals. In a recent article in Vadose Zone Journal, scientists show that the developers of popular models of diffusion have made invalid assumptions. ...> Full Article

Mint oil production moves south (2/27/2010)

A two-year field study in Mississippi evaluated the effect of nitrogen, growth stage (bud formation and flowering), and harvest time (first in mid-July, second beginning of October) on peppermint yields, oil content and composition. ...> Full Article

Forest tree species diversity depends on individual variation (2/26/2010)

It's a paradox that's puzzled scientists for a half-century. Models clearly show that the coexistence of competing species depends on those species responding differently to the availability of resources. Then why do studies comparing competing tree species draw a blank? ...> Full Article

French and Spanish researchers develop a natural alternative to antibiotics in animal feed (2/25/2010)

Molecules from seaweed extracts and natural clays help adsorbing the harmful toxins which are found in animal feed. The resulting new product has a huge potential market worldwide as a completely natural alternative to the formerly-used antibiotics, which are now prohibited from this use in the European Union. ...> Full Article

Roots key to second Green Revolution (2/24/2010)

Root systems are the basis of the second Green Revolution, and the focus on beans and corn that thrive in poor growing conditions will help some of the world's poorest farmers, according to a Penn State plant scientist. ...> Full Article

Fungal fumes clear out crop pests (2/23/2010)

A cocktail of compounds emitted by the beneficial fungus Muscodor albus may offer a biologically based way to fumigate certain crops and rid them of destructive pests. ...> Full Article

The Philippines triples its rice yield (2/22/2010)

In the last 50 years, the Philippines has more than tripled its rice yield, while the world average rice yield has increased only about 2.3 times. ...> Full Article

A review of vegetated buffer efficacy (2/21/2010)

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, reviewed more than 300 papers, analyzed the data from these studies, and developed statistical models describing the mitigation efficacies of vegetated buffers. The study reveals the quantitative relationships between mitigation efficacies of vegetated buffers and their width, vegetation type, and slope ...> Full Article

Conference seeks sweeping changes to global agriculture (2/20/2010)

Up to 1,000 World Food Prize Laureates, ministers, farmers, community development organizations, leading scientists, and innovators will gather in Montpellier, France, from March 28-31, 2010 for the first ever Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development. ...> Full Article

Cows: More freedom may mean less milk (2/19/2010)

"Free-stall," untied cattle in small herds produce less milk than cows tied to their stalls but have a higher reproductive performance and suffer less teat injuries and metabolic diseases. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica compared performance and health within the two stall types in response to a ban on the construction of new tie-stalls. ...> Full Article

Beyond the corn field: Balancing fuel, food and biodiversity (2/18/2010)

The development of alternative fuel will greatly benefit the US, say scientists in an Energy Foundation-funded report published today by the Ecological Society of America, the nation's largest organization of ecological scientists. However, in order to effectively reap the social and economic benefits of biofuel production, US policies need to address potential effects of land-use choices on our ecosystems. ...> Full Article

Plant breeding helps revive western rangelands (2/17/2010)

For more than two decades, Agricultural Research Service scientists have been developing new grasses and forages that can hold their own on the rugged rangelands of the western United States. ...> Full Article

Hands-on: From classroom to employment (2/16/2010)

A pilot program for employment in sustainable agriculture, Sustainable Agriculture Scholars Program, is used to expand on routine undergraduate lab work. The program includes hands on and experiential learning opportunities, designed to increase excitement, interest and understand of careers in sustainable agriculture. ...> Full Article

Basque farm animal sector suffering from lack of new generation to take over sheep farms (2/15/2010)

The Ph.D. thesis of the University of the Basque Country researcher, Ms Guadalupe Ramos Truchero, tackled the reasons why the Basque animal husbandry sector, specifically that of dairy sheep farming, is currently suffering from the lack of new generations to take over the running of the farms. ...> Full Article

Dramatic changes in agriculture needed as world warms and grows, researchers say (2/14/2010)

To overcome the massive obstacles posed by global climate change and population growth, the world needs to rethink the use of agricultural biotechnology, explore the potential of aquaculture, and maximize agricultural production in dry and saline areas, stress these leading scientists. ...> Full Article

Scientists sequence genome of grass that can be a biofuel model crop (2/13/2010)

Brachypodium distachyon can be used by plant scientists the way other researchers use lab mice to study human disease -- as a model organism that is similar to but easier to grow and study than important agricultural crops, including wheat and barley. The research also supports the USDA priority of developing new sources of bioenergy; the brachypodium genome is similar to that of the potential bioenergy crop switchgrass. But the smaller genome of brachypodium makes it easier to find genes linked to specific traits. ...> Full Article

New investments in agriculture likely to fail without sharp focus on small-scale 'mixed' farmers (2/12/2010)

A new paper published today in Science warns that billions of dollars promised to fund programs to boost small-scale agriculture in developing countries are unlikely to succeed in feeding the world's increasing populations. This is due not only to increasing populations and changing environments, but also to little "intellectual commitment" to the ubiquitous small-scale "mixed" farmers who raise both crops and animals and are the source of much of today's food supplies and economic development. ...> Full Article

Barley protein concentrate could replace fishmeal in aquaculture feeds (2/9/2010)

Agricultural Research Service scientists and Montana Microbial Products of Butte, Mont., have developed a barley protein concentrate that could be fed to trout and other commercially produced fish. ...> Full Article

Plantations can provide the same ecosystem services as natural forests (2/8/2010)

Not all plantations need to be the biological deserts that have come to characterize large-scale, industrial plantations. According to scientists in a paper out in February's issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, well-planned plantations can actually alleviate some of the social, economic and ecological burden currently being placed on natural forests. ...> Full Article

ARS scientists turn to a wild oat to combat crown rust (2/7/2010)

Agricultural Research Service scientists are tapping into the DNA of a wild oat, considered by some to be a noxious weed, to see if it can help combat crown rust, the most damaging fungal disease of oats worldwide. ...> Full Article

Ecologists discover forests are growing faster (2/6/2010)

Speed is not a word typically associated with trees; they can take centuries to grow. However, a new study to be published the week of Feb. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found evidence that forests in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the past 225 years. The study offers a rare look at how an ecosystem is responding to climate change. ...> Full Article

Spherical cows help to dump metabolism law (2/5/2010)

The mysterious "3/4 law of metabolism" is wrong. "Actually, it's 2/3," says University of Vermont mathematician Peter Dodds. His analysis from networks helps overturn almost 80 years of belief in a near-mystical relationship between the size of animals and their resting metabolism. ...> Full Article

Leaves whisper their properties through ultrasound (2/4/2010)

The water content of leaves, their thickness, their density and other properties can now be determined without even having to touch them. A team of researchers from the CSIC Institute of Acoustics and the Agri-Food Research and Technology Centre of Aragón has just presented an innovative technique that enables plant leaves to be studied using ultrasound in a quick, simple and noninvasive fashion. ...> Full Article

Humble garden pea helps scientists develop 'cool,' noninvasive diagnostic test of seed quality (2/3/2010)

Scientists from Kew's Millennium Seed Bank in the United Kingdom and the University of Graz, Austria, have developed a rapid, new method to diagnose seed quality non-invasively and in real time. ...> Full Article

Studies provide insight into key oat chemical (2/2/2010)

Studies conducted by Agricultural Research Service scientists are helping to increase understanding about the environmental factors that regulate production of avenanthramides, metabolites with potent antioxidant properties, in oat grain. ...> Full Article

Genetic analysis helps spot sugarcane rusts (2/1/2010)

Agricultural Research Service scientists have analyzed rust fungi from more than 160 sugarcane samples from 25 countries to provide a valuable resource for plant breeders and pathologists who are searching for genetic resistance to the deadly orange and brown rusts. ...> Full Article