by Karl Haro von Mogel on 8 March 2009 Are you a backyard breeder? Do you want to be? Well with this video, now you can!
Well, I think if you are a plant breeding student, a breeder looking to train a new workforce, or someone who’s really just curious about how you can possibly make seeds to grow ‘seedless’ watermelons, you’ll like this video. Written and narrated by Yours Truly, and painstakingly stitched together by UW’s own Clark Thompson, with help from a whole array of resources and experts, I give you:
Pollination Methods: Cucurbits
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by Anastasia on 4 February 2009  In Something tastes bad…, I questioned IATP’s use of the Env. Health paper Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: measured concentrations in food product sugar. The paper described an experiment that took place in 2005. Renee Dufault, the lead author, described how she obtained samples of high fructose corn syrup and tested them for mercury. When she went back for more samples, her employer (the FDA) asked her to switch to a different project, so no more tests have been conducted. We can only hope that increased funding for the FDA will result from the recent elections and in response to the many recent threats, particularly peanut butter!
Renee has offered to discuss her experiment, her interactions with the FDA, and her reaction to the IATP report. I heartily agree with her call for more testing, but extend the call beyond mercury to include other contaminants, chemical and biological. I also agree that removing mercury from our environment should be top priority, but still feel that mercury exposure from coal-burning power plants is far more dangerous due to quantity than mercury from chlor-alkali plants. However, it certainly couldn’t hurt to switch chlor-alkali plants over to newer (non-mercury) technology!
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by Anastasia on 28 October 2008 As I write this, I munch on organic blue corn chips and homemade pico de gallo, made with purple peppers from Small Potatoes Farm (along with heirloom tomatoes and flat leaf Italian parsley and with a glass of local wine from Summerset Winery, yum!). Why choose blue and purple? Anthocyanins, of course. These natural plant compounds are nice to look at, and there is a lot of evidence that they have protecting health qualities for those who eat them, protecting us from diseases like cancer, diabetes, and obesity. So, what do we do to make sure that people can get recommended amounts of anthocyanins?
 Anthocyanin-rich berries are delicious but expensive and only available during certain times of year. Most people do not seek out red cabbage or brightly colored heirloom varieties of veggies like carrots and cauliflower. In the US, the most frequently eaten vegetables are potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes. Purple tomatoes exist, but heirloom tomatoes have issues like splitting and little time till spoilage. This is fine if you buy them at the farmer’s market and eat them the next day, but is not suitable for things like pasta sauce production (cans and bottles are where most people get their RDA of tomatoes, but it turns out they are healthier that way!). Varieties like Cherokee purple, while awesome, don’t produce anthocyanins throughout the fruit.
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by Anastasia on 22 July 2008 The Rodale Institute, major proponent of organic agriculture, is offering a free online at-your-own-pace course that focuses on the transition from conventional to organic farming. They also have a calculator that farmers can use to find how much more (or less, I suppose) their farm can make if they transition to organic, given their specific situation. If you take the course, let me know what you think.
The Rodale Institute does a lot of good work, although I am frustrated by their nonscience views on quite a few topics, including raw milk and genetic engineering. The whole technology-is-evil schtick is less than productive, but many organic techniques are productive. I used to have a very negative view of organic because of their rejection of science, but Tomorrow’s Table by Pamela Ronald changed my views. She explains that reduction of chemical inputs and impact on the environment can be best achieved with a combination of organic techniques and careful application of genetic engineering. Buying organic doesn’t necessarily mean “I think GMOs are evil” but it does mean “I don’t want to eat pesticides, and am looking for a change.”
Thanks to Dr. Cornelia Butler Flora of NCRCRD for pointing this course out to ISU’s Sustainable Agriculture students.
The course overall is a good introduction to what organic is and its benefits. Not unexpectedly, I do have a few critiques (as well as compliments)…
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by Anastasia on 21 July 2008  Vegetarian Times often lures me into buying an issue with their delicious cover recipes, like this amazing looking “Mediterranean pressed picnic sandwich”. The recipes are great, but I wish they would stick with what they know best. This month’s “carrot & stick” column contained the following:
“STICKS TO American Crystal Sugar Company, based in Moorhead, Minn., for sourcing sugar from genetically engineered sugar beets designed to withstand the herbicide Roundup. Since sugar beets account for half of the nation’s granulated sugar production, GE ingredients will soon be present in just about every nonorganic, multiple-ingredient product people buy, says the Organic Consumers Association, which has called on American Crystal to reconsider its decision. Products containing GE ingredients are not required to be labeled as such.”
I like food labels. I wish we had more, but if we are going to have one label, we’ve gotta have them all…
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