July 10, 2008, 8:32 PM CT

Environmental Programs in China Successful

Two of the world's largest environmental programs in China are generally successful, eventhough key reforms could transform them into a model for the rest of the world, as per research results published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Jianguo "Jack" Liu, a scientist at Michigan State University, is the lead researcher on the project. Liu and other researchers evaluated China's Natural Forest Conservation and Grain to Green programs that together represent a government investment of more than 500 billion yuan (more than $72 billion).

"These results illustrate the benefits of basic research on coupled natural and human systems," said Thomas Baerwald, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences, which funded the research along with NSF's Directorates for Geosciences and Biological Sciences. "In examining two major Chinese environmental programs, Liu and his colleagues have provided generalizable knowledge regarding the complex ways policies affect interactions between natural and human systems.

"They also have generated specific information and insights that will assist Chinese policy makers--as well as policy makers in other nations--to design more effective programs to preserve the environment"......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

July 8, 2008, 6:52 PM CT

Ground Cover To Reduce Impact Of Biomass Harvest

Ground cover may be one workable method to reduce the effects of erosion that future biomass harvests are predicted to bring.

Iowa State University scientists are looking at ways to use ground cover, a living grass planted between the rows of corn, in production farming.

The seemingly limitless national appetite for ethanol has industry and government looking beyond the kernel to the entire corn plant for more fuel.

But corn, the source of most of the United States' ethanol, is not limitless, so turning corn stalks and leaves into ethanol is the target of much research.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that by the year 2030, about 20 percent of ethanol will be made by turning corn stalks and leaves, known as corn stover, into fuel. That projection assumes that 75 percent of this corn stover can be harvested for biofuels. Currently, stover is not used to make ethanol.

Farmers now leave corn stover on their corn fields to slow wind and water erosion and re-supply the soil with organic material to ensure future productivity.

"The issue is this," said Ken Moore, Iowa State University agronomy professor. "How do you harvest corn stover in a way that sustains the productivity of the environment for producing future corn?"......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:24:07 GMT

A thousand flowers

I came upon this lovely bunching of little white flowers when Seth and I were taking a break from trying (without much success) to cut the fallen cedar out of the lake.

If my mad skills (non-existent) at identifying plants are correct, this is Achillea millefolium millefolium, a type of yarrow that is native to the great state of Missouri and perhaps specific to it. The Missouri subspecies can have rose-colored or even pink blooms, and if you look closely at some of the petals in the center of the image, you can see that they have streaks of color in them.

Achilles was said to use this plant to stop bleeding among his soldiers, thus giving the plant part of its name. If my mad skills in Latin serve me (only a little better than my plant skills) the millefolium part translates as "thousand flowers."

There is something in me that is partial to tiny flowers. Perhaps it is that they reward the little bit of effort you must expend to examine them. A big, goofy hibiscus flower is easy to see and appreciate, but tiny flowers like these ask for a bit more from you.

This specimen was growing on the south-facing slope, just up from the shore of the lake. The habitat is about perfect for it, so maybe I’ll see more.

Missouri calendar:

• Spiny softshell turtles lay eggs on sandbars and gravelbars.

Today in Missouri history:

• John Cummins Edwards was born on this date in 1806. He rose to be Missouri''s youngest governor up to his time, but his political fired burned out fast and he moved to California at the age of 42 to prospect for gold.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:49:48 GMT

Abutilon 'Fool's Gold'

Thank you to Dougeee@Flickr of Georgia, USA, for contributing today''s photograph to BPotD (via the Flickr BPotD Group Pool | original). Much obliged!

This cultivar is a recent introduction from Tony Avent''s Plant Delights Nursery. I have to link to the commercial site to give you more information, since other resources about this cultivar are sparse to non-existent. Abutilons are also commonly known as flowering maples, due to the resemblance of the leaf shape (of some species / hybrids) to the classic maple form.

Malvaceae.info has a photo gallery of both species and hybrids of Abutilon. The genus is native to tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

July 3, 2008, 9:30 PM CT

Giving nature a helping hand

People in the tropics depend heavily on the products and services the forest supplies. However, the natural regeneration process from agricultural land to forest often stagnates at the scrub stage. Some plants and shrubs grow vigorously and become dominant as a result of which young trees do not receive enough light to grow.

Cutting free.

Cutting young trees free generally results in increased growth. Van Kuijk discovered that the response of trees to an opening in the vegetation varied among species. This was correlation to the tree height, the leaf surface, the dimensions of the crown and the amount of light the trees needed. The ideal size for the opening in the surrounding vegetation varies for each species and depends on the height and density of the vegetation. The PHOLIAGE model can predict tree growth accurately. This makes it possible to determine per tree and per forest the best timing, the best opening and the effects of cutting free.

Planting

The PHOLIAGE model can also be used when scheduling the planting of new trees. The success of planting depends on factors such as exposure to light by the existing vegetation, tree species, et cetera. In general, the calculations indicated that shade-tolerant species achieve maximum growth faster (with less intervention) than photophilic species. However, it is not always desirable to open up the vegetation to such an extent that all tree species can reach their maximum growth. That can be at the expense of the existing forest and requires a lot of work. The PHOLIAGE model calculates the amount of growth increase per planting, given a particular opening size......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

July 2, 2008, 10:27 PM CT

Ethanol byproduct produces green results

Commercial flower and plant growers know all too well that invasive, ubiquitous weeds cause trouble by lowering the value and deterring healthy growth of potted ornamental plants. To control weeds, a number of commercial nursery owners resort to the expensive practice of paying workers to hand-weed containers. Some growers use herbicides, but efficacy of herbicides is questionable on the wide range of plant species produced in nurseries, and a number of herbicides are not registered for use in greenhouses.

Enter "dried distillers grains with solubles", or DDGS. DDGS, a byproduct of converting corn to fuel ethanol, is typically used as livestock feed. Rick A. Boydston, Harold P. Collins, and Steve Vaughn, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, undertook a research study on the use of DDGS as a weed deterrent on potted ornamentals. The study results, reported in the February 2008 issue of HortScience, reviewed the use of DDGS as a soil amendment to suppress weeds in container-grown ornamentals.

Scientists applied DDGS two ways: to the soil surface, and mixed into the potting media of transplanted ornamentals. Applied to the soil surface after transplanting, DDGS caused no injury to plants. As per Dr. Boydston, an agronomist with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), "grains applied to the surface at rates that gave good coverage of the soil (800 and 1600 g/m2) reduced the number of common chickweed and annual bluegrass. Weed control was not perfect, but could reduce the amount of hand-weeding typically required"......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

July 1, 2008, 9:48 PM CT

Plants in the fourth dimension

As anyone who has suffered from jetlag knows, we have internal clocks that tell us when to sleep and wake, and we can be miserable when these are disrupted. The daily cycles of a number of organisms are well known, but what has not been clear is whether these cycles are just responses to external cues of light, dark, heat, and cold, or if there are internal clocks that are set and reset by environmental signals. In animals, circadian rhythms are known to be important for maintaining a multitude of physiological processes. They may be even more critical for plants, which grow in a number of different light and temperature environments that not only vary with latitude but also with subtle differences within just a few feet. Plants respond to changes in light and temperature, opening flowers at dawn and closing them at night or blooming in the right season. However, they also have endogenous circadian ("around the day") rhythms with roughly 24 hour periods that are regulated by numerous genes that interact in complex pathways and cycles like exquisite 18th century clocks. These clock genes have been intensely investigated over the last 20 years, but we still do not fully understand the molecular mechanisms that make them run. Knowledge of these oscillations and the genes that regulate them could help us adjust the growth, development, and yield of crops under climatically variable conditions......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

June 19, 2008, 9:08 PM CT

Lost in the Supermarket?

Why the "Cheap Food Revolution" hasn't reached poor countries.

Most people don't think twice as they pass spring apples from the southern hemisphere as they enter the supermarket, but they are participating in a cheap food revolution that has swept the industrialized world over the past couple of generations. The supermarket is the last step in a complicated global process that has changed every aspect of how we produce and consume food. In theory, the arrival of supermarkets in a country should bring with it the "cheap food" that we have enjoyed for so a number of years.

In a probing study for Economic Development and Cultural Change, Bart Minten of the International Food Policy Research Institute (www.ifpri.org) asks: "The Food Retail Revolution in Poor Countries: Is It Coming or Is It Over?" Using the African island nation of Madagascar-171st out of 181 countries in the IMF's calculations of purchasing power based on GDP-as his case study, Minten shows that "cheap food" isn't so cheap for poor countries.

Multi-national chains have turned their attention to the developing world, where the demand for lower prices would seem universally higher. For instance, supermarkets jumped from 10%-20% to 50%-60% of food retail from 1990 to the early 2000s in most of South America, and free market disciples have praised the multinationals for bringing cheap food to the poor. The Economist, in fact, described one of the chains in Madagascar as the "Wal-Mart of Africa," and praised it for bringing low-priced goods to the poor. The problem is: the poor aren't coming......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

June 19, 2008, 9:05 PM CT

Growers Do Not Reap Benefits Of Rising Food Prices

New research on the commodity coffee market in Uganda finds that when prices percolate, coffee windfalls don't fully reach the growers.

Coffee is the world's largest agricultural commodity, and is also one of the world's most volatile. Large global coffee price fluctuations mean coffee has seen a number of periods of rapidly increasing prices. But new research shows that when global coffee prices rise, farmers do not see the same rise in the price they receive. In their new study for Economic Development and Cultural Change, Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill look to the long-time coffee producing nation of Uganda to attempt to answer this riddle. The country's economy is fully liberalized, and the large coffee market makes up nearly the entire bulk of its agricultural exports. "The story we tell," say Fafchamps and Hill, "is unexpected. Normally as economists we think that competition is good, yet here it does not achieve the desired result." To their surprise, they observed that the influx of seasonal buyers-the so-called "ddebe boys"-that attends higher prices actually means price increases are not fully passed on to the growers.

Fafchamps and Hill find that increases in the international coffee price are reflected relatively rapidly in domestic prices paid by exporters and large traders. However, increases in the international price are not fully reflected in the price paid to farmers at the farm gate. Fafchamps and Hill examine why this is the case. An analysis of marketing costs such as transport, handling, storage, and processing observed that those costs do not increase with price......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

June 10, 2008, 9:50 PM CT

Farmers who plant after June 20

A costly deadline looms for a number of growers in the Midwest, as every day of waiting for the weather to cooperate to plant corn and soybeans reduces potential yields.

Illinois growers who plant corn or soybeans near the end of June can expect a 50 percent reduction in crop yield, as per a University of Illinois agriculture expert.

The US Department of Agriculture reports that corn and soybean growers in several Midwestern states are behind schedule on their planting. A cooler and wetter-than-average spring has left Illinois and Indiana furthest behind on planted corn and soybeans. Several other states are lagging behind their normal planting schedules, but by a lesser margin.

In Illinois, 95 percent of the corn is planted and 88 percent has emerged, but less than half of that is reported to be in good or excellent condition. Fully 14 percent of the acres planted are in poor or very poor condition, with another 38 percent reported as "fair." Those acres in poor or very poor condition may have to be replanted.

In Illinois, the corn was only seven inches high as of June 9, in comparison to an average 17 inches by this time in recent years.

"This has been a bad spring by most measures," said Illinois crop sciences professor Emerson Nafziger. "We keep seeing forecasts that look favorable and then that doesn't happen. The chance of having above-average yields has diminished greatly"......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source