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Plant Science Blog From Biology-blog.com

added: Sun, 12th March 2006 | 714 views | 0x in favourites
feed url: http://www.biology-blog.com/blogs/rss/plant-science-blo...

Plant Science Blog

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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 .........

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........

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........

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........

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........

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........

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........

Willing To Pay A Premium For Locally Produced Food

New research suggests that the average supermarket shopper is willing to pay a premium price for locally produced foods, providing some farmers an attractive option to enter a niche market that could boost their revenues. The study also showed that shoppers at farm markets are willing to pay almost twice as much extra as retail grocery shoppers for the same locally produced foods. Both kinds of shoppers also will pay more for guaranteed fresh produce and tend to favor buying food produced by small farms over what they perceive as corporate operations, as per the study........

What makes life go at the tropics?

What causes tropical life to thrive: temperature, or sunlight? The answer is not necessarily both. As per a research studypublished online this week in PNAS Early Edition, the explosion of species at the tropics has much more to do with warmth than with light. The diversity was uncorrelation to productivity (from photosynthesis), but it was strongly correlation to temperature, said University of Southern California biologist Jed Fuhrman, who led a group that analyzed bacterial samples from warm and cold oceans........

Children's gardens mushrooming

Scientists have discovered the secrets to enhancing youth participation in school- and community-based garden programs. A 3-year study entitled Greener Voices proves that children will engage in learning more readily when given responsibility for decisionmaking and planning. Childrens gardens have mushroomed during the past two decades. Gardens are popping up in schools, communities, public venues, and informal settings. Despite recent interest in gardening with children, little credence has been given to what children think about the experience: what interests them, how they may be involved in decisionmaking and planning, and how they can benefit from their involvement. Adults make a number of assumptions about children and gardening, and instead of enlisting the creativity and innovative thinking of young people, they often involve children in the more mundane tasks of planting, weeding, and watering notes Marcia Eames-Sheavly, lead researcher and Senior Extension Associate at Cornell Universitys Garden-Based Learning Program (http://www.hort.cornell.edu/gbl)........

Greener offices make happier employees

As per the 2000 census, Americans office workers spend an average of 52 hours a week at their desks or work stations. A number of recent studies on job satisfaction have shown that workers who spend longer hours in office environments, often under artificial light in windowless offices, report reduced job satisfaction and increased stress levels........

New recommendations for grape growers

The inland areas of the Pacific Northwest, where rainfall averages only 4 to 12 inches per year, present growing challenges for vineyard owners and wine grape producers. The arid conditions in this part of the country have not been conducive for vineyard owners who produce and market high-quality wine grapes........

Hepatica nobilis

Thanks once again to Jackie Chambers, UBC Botanical Garden horticulturist, for supplying both the photograph and write-up for today''s .........

Window of opportunity for restoring oaks small

Communities of Oregon white oak were once widespread in the Pacific Northwests western lowlands, but, today, they are in decline. Fire suppression, conifer and invasive plant encroachment, and land use change have resulted in the loss of as much as 99 percent of the oak communities historically present in some areas of the region........

Beyond nutrition: plants deliver

The need for a renewable and affordable source of carbon that can sustain future economic development without negatively impacting the environment is now widely recognised. It is also apparent that the increasingly high demand for fossil carbon will eventually deplete existing stocks. The Plant Journal is pleased to present a series of invited peer-reviewed articles that describe processes that plants can or could use to convert their fixed carbon into fuels and other useful products. The articles were commissioned to provide an authoritative scientific backdrop to inform discussion in debates on finding alternative and reliable sources of carbon........

Fritillaria affinis

Thanks once again to Jackie Chambers of UBC Botanical Garden for submitting a photograph and .........

Transgenic SunUp Papaya Genome

This week's issue of Nature features the draft genome of the transgenic 'SunUp' Papaya, the first commercial virus-resistant transgenic fruit tree to be sequenced. From Nature .........

Gardeners get advice from neighbors, friends

Where do gardeners turn when they need information about annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees" Staff at University of Minnesota Extension have published results of a survey that concludes that the majority of backyard gardeners get their planting and plant information informallymost often from friends, neighbors and local garden centers........

Silicon's effect on sunflowers

Vibrant, showy sunflowers are revered worldwide for their beauty and versatility. While a number of varieties of sunflower are grown specifically for their nutritional benefits, ornamental sunflowers have become standards for commercial growers and everyday gardeners. As sunflowers' popularity grows, researchers are looking for new supplements and growing methods to enhance production and quality of this celebrated annual........

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