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FarmNews First >
BetterFarming.comBetter Farming
November 2016
According to
MIT News
, only two per
cent of pesticide spray adheres to
plants, while the remainder typically
runs off of the plant surface. Re-
searchers at the
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
are working
on a solution that maximizes pesti-
cide adherence to plant leaves and
reduces this runoff.
The researchers have found that
when a negatively-charged substance
meets a positively-charged substance
on a plant surface, the combination
results in improved adherence.
The approach requires the separa-
tion of pesticide spray into two
portions and the addition of a
polymer substance to each portion
before application. The researchers
plan to test their findings on small-
scale farms in India in 2017.
The researchers published their
find-
ings in
Nature
Communications
in August.
BF
Mario Daccarett
, a
California farmer,
has found a way
to keep his 500
sheep well fed
while saving
water in the
process. He feeds
his sheep a
combination of oats,
hay and sprouted barley. He sprouts
the barley seeds indoors using
hydroponic containers and grow
lights.
In an article posted on
npr.org,
Daccarett says he produces over 2,000
pounds of sprouts daily and uses “just
two percent of the water it would take
to grow the crop outside.” The seeds
are misted hourly with water to start
germination. Within six days the
sprouts stand six inches tall and are
ready for consumption.
Hydroponic containers are expen-
sive but Daccarett estimates he
recouped his initial investment
within a little over one year.
Daccarett says his sheep are pleased
as well. He believes that barley grown
indoors tastes sweeter
.
BF
A recent
discovery by
researchers at
DuPont
Pioneer
could
help farmers
manage western
corn rootworm, a
destructive insect that
feeds on the roots, pollen
and leaves of corn and ultimately
shrinks crop yields.
In a September press release
Neal
Gutterson
, DuPont Pioneer vice
president of research and develop-
ment, said the company has discov-
ered a “protein that demonstrates
insecticidal control of western corn
rootworm with a new and different
mode of action.”
Traditional treatment for western
corn rootworm relies on Bacillus
thuringiensis (Bt) protein. Gutterson
said that DuPont Pioneer’s discovery
of a non-Bt protein “could be a
critical component for managing
corn rootworm disease in future corn
seed product offerings.”
The research was published in
Science Magazine
in September.
BF
Promising discovery for controlling
western corn rootworm
Getting pesticides to stick on plants
Innovative feed production to conserve water
Imagine having the ability to identify
a diseased plant by its scent before it
showed any visual signs of distress.
Early detection of the affected plant
would allow you to remove it from
your field before it posed a threat to
the remainder of your crop.
XTB Laboratories in California
has developed a technology which is
able to achieve this goal, according to
a September article on
SeedWorld.com.
Specifically, XTB Laboratories
uses volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) - odours produced by plants
and all living organisms - to detect
the presence of disease. The technolo-
gy has proven successful in citrus
orchards. The company’s website
indicates “XTB’s proprietary algo-
rithms form the basis for a platform
to address many other plant patho-
gens.”
BF
Analyzing plant odour to detect disease
FAR
AFIELD
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