Needle cast diseases on Christmas trees
Christmas tree growers are advised to be on the lookout for needle infections by fungal pathogens causing discolouration and defoliation. Severe cases of needle drop not only decrease tree value, but result in poor tree health and vigour. Although most conifers are somewhat susceptible to needle cast diseases, certain varieties of Scots pine, Douglas-fir and…
Blogging from BCPC/IPPC 2007 – Call for Agrochem Education
Day Three of the BCPC Congress here in Glasgow and everything is in full swing. There’s a full programme of seminars, meetings and posters, alongside a buzzing exhibition hall. The quality of freebie giveaways is pretty low, but can whoever is giving out the squeezy brain stress toys please make themselves known? The CABI stand…
(Not-so-)Happy World Food Day!
Today is World Food Day. Or World Food Week. Or World Food Month, depending on which country you’re living in. This year the event, which has been taking place since 1980, centres on the theme of ‘The Right To Food’ and is held each year on the anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s foundation…
Finding that needle: searching tips
I’ve spent the last few months constructing ready made searches for Nutrition and Food Sciences on CAB Direct. Here are some general handy tips for choosing the words for searches that I have gathered on the way. This isn’t the CAB Direct helpfile, you’ll find that on CAB Direct.
Gardening in Microgravity
Long-term space missions would need plants for recycling carbon dioxide and oxygen and producing food. However, growing plants in space is a tricky business – some of the basic signs of over- or under-watering (wilting and flopping) are simply not present in microgravity, and water does not spread through the soil as it would on…
Not mush-room for fungi in school
The British Mycological Society runs an excellent website called Fungi4Schools. Not a school lunches initiative as you might expect, it’s a resource for teachers who are looking for ways to introduce information about fungi in all their many forms to students of all ages. A quick investigation of the UK National Curriculum, and I’ll admit…
Pine beetles continue marching east
If this press release is anything to go by, hard times in Canadian forestry are about to get harder. The Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) has been chomping its way through the lodgepole pines of British Columbia since a shortage of cold winters has allowed it to spread unchecked. The beetles spread the deadly "blue-stain"…
The Blandford Fly is not confined to Blandford (and other interesting facts about blackflies)
Although the weather has become quite autumnal in the last week or so, the mosquitoes which have been flying around my house in the evenings in unusually high numbers in recent weeks (fortunately without biting me much) have not yet disappeared, and have reminded me of an interesting article1 that I came across earlier in…
Can Bt Maize Beat Down Mycotoxins?
Reducing fumonisin through Bt could have significant benefits in developing countries, especially where unprocessed maize is a key part of the diet
Bruno, Bruce and the Penan
More than 10 years ago I came across a magazine article about Bruno Manser, a Swiss activist, who had gone to live among a nomadic tribe in Borneo called the Penan. I was fascinated by the way he had become part of the tribe to understand how they lived within the forests of Sarawak. At…