James and the Giant Corn Genetics: Studying the Source Code of Nature

October 19, 2009

Welcome PATSP readers

Filed under: Link Posts — James @ 9:46 am

If you’re hitting the site for the first time welcome. Look around and make yourself at home. I’ve been meaning to highlight a couple of my more popular posts and I figured your visit was a good occasion to do so:

GM tomatoes don’t taste bad

Why Wheat is Losing Out in the Era of Modern Crop Breeding

and

A Defense of Hybrids

October 17, 2009

Bill Gates at the World Food Prize

Filed under: agriculture,Link Posts — Tags: , , , — James @ 1:07 pm

If you have a few minutes, take the time to either watch or read the speech Bill Gates delivered at the World Food Prize in Des Moines. While I don’t care for the operating system that made him a multi-multi-billionaire, I don’t think anyone can argue that he is doing more good with his wealth than any other member of the superwealthy.

Africa is the only place where per capita cereal yields have been flat over the last 25 years. The average farmer in sub-Saharan Africa gets just over half a ton of cereal per acre. An Indian farmer gets twice that; a Chinese farmer, four times that; an American farmer; five times that. (more…)

October 16, 2009

Pictures of an Extinct Flower

Filed under: Link Posts — James @ 2:41 pm

The people over at plant-talk have a post up with gorgeous pictures taken in 1982 of a Ghost Orchid, a English wildflower that hasn’t been seen in 23 years and was recently declared extinct.

October 15, 2009

Spoiled with Perfect Produce

From teddlerus on flickr

From teddleruss on flickr

Matt over at The Scientist Gardener put up an important post a couple of days ago where he related his own experiences touring a lettuce field:

The crop wasn’t in great shape, but we anticipated a decent harvest. We were shocked to learn that the field had already been harvested! Hundreds of perfectly edible heads lay all around us, left unpicked because they didn’t meet stringent appearance standards for consumer acceptance.

How big an issue imperfection is varies from crop to crop. For a crop like oranges it isn’t one at all, since there’s plenty of demand for orange juice, a use that don’t require visually attractive fruit. Now when it comes to something like cauliflower, or as Matt was talking about lettuce, there’s very little demand for anything other than fresh, whole produce. The rest just goes to waste rotting in fields.

In America it is an issue of consumer preference, and I couldn’t find any statistics on wastage to imperfect fruit. In the European Union it was until recently a matter of government policy. Twenty percent of produce was being thrown away for not meeting government size and shape criteria. This summer the restrictions were removed from 26 type of fruit and vegetables which was expected to cause price drops of up to 40% for some kinds of fresh produce. You could imagine something similar would happen in the US if we as consumers didn’t demand perfect fruits and vegetables, making healthy (if odd looking) food more affordable for everyone.

I’m not sure if there’s a call to action here. Just something to be aware of.

October 11, 2009

Snow on Corn

Filed under: Link Posts — Tags: , , , — James @ 3:41 am

Speaking of strange weather: Check out the first photo of the latest post on Plants are the Strangest People. I’m not used to seeing corn getting snowed on until the plants have already turned brown. But that’s exactly what happened in Iowa.

This will be my second winter without snow (except visits to see family in the rest of the country). It feels very unnatural. Hope I still remember how to drive in it (and shovel it) once I leave Berkeley.

Note that it’s 3:40 AM in the west coast. My weekend of decompression and vegetation is going well.

October 10, 2009

Really Strange Looking Clouds

Filed under: Link Posts — Tags: , , — James @ 11:25 pm

It looks like something photoshopped but apparently not, a whole new class of clouds created by ripples between different layers of air in the sky. Like the the dust storm in sydney, real weather can be strange enough to look like something out of a movie with modern CGI.

One question I have from the write up:

In hill country from Iowa to the Scottish Highlands…

Where is this Iowan hill country?

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