Scientists make citrus deposits to deep-freeze gene bank

Courtesy Agricultural Research ServiceTechnician Remi Bonnart (foreground) flash-freezes plant shoot tips.U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists are depositing citrus germplasm in a deep-freeze bank to preserve it for future breeding efforts.

The process, known as cryopreservation, involves small buds or shoot tips, according to a news release.
Some genebanks maintain living citrus trees

Commodity agriculture: supply chains and sustainability

Global demand for palm oil, beef, cocoa and other commodities is rapidly increasing. The production of these commodities is focused in tropical forest regions, where the environmental and social impacts of food production are greatest. Not least, commodity agriculture in the tropics is associated with extensive deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.

In response to these challenges,

Hard Truth About No-Till

It's been 12 years since I began utilizing no-till as a way to alleviate and remediate compaction on our Nebraska farm. Removing plowshares, disc blades and shank points eliminates the shearing forces that compact soil.




Harvesting in tough conditions adds to compaction issues. (DTN photo by Jim Patrico)

Unfortunately, using heavy machinery (the norm today) and trafficking when

Conservation Works Where Used

The wet spring in parts of the Midwest not only made planting tricky for many farmers, but a new report by the Environmental Working Group said heavy rains at the end of May in particular led to increased soil erosion in parts of Iowa.




Recent heavy rainfall washed away tons of topsoil in Iowa. That issue may be addressed in the new farm bill. (Photo by National Resource and Conservation

Do Parasites Upset the Food Web Theory?

Parasites comprise a large proportion of the diversity of species in every ecosystem.

Despite this, they are rarely included in analyses or models of food webs. If parasites play different roles from other predators and prey, however, their inclusion could fundamentally alter our understanding of how food webs are organized. In a paper published 11 June in the open access journal PLOS Biology,

Destaca industria biotecnológica ganancias por uso de algodón y soya transgénicos

En los últimos 17 años, México ha registrado ganancias aproximadas de 180 mdd gracias a la comercialización de algodón y soya genéticamente modificadas (GM).
Agrobio México, organismo que aglutina a las principales empresas biotecnológicas –Monsanto, Pioneer, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta y Dow AgroSciencie– señala que pese a que México fue pionero en materia de Organismos Genéticamente

Economic Growth Necessary But Not Sufficient to Reduce Hunger, Malnutrition

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 presents new estimates of undernourishment based on a revised and improved methodology.


The new estimates show that progress in reducing hunger during the past 20 years has been better than previously believed, and that, given renewed efforts, it may be possible to reach the MDG hunger target at the global level by 2015. However, the number of