Ug99: One Year On
An opportunity here, for me to recap on a post I wrote back in January ’07. Puccinia graminis strain Ug99 has once again hit the headlines and it isn’t good news. The situation in outline is that the Ug99 strain of black rust fungus readily attacks wheat plants, as it resists the most popular rust-resistance…
Death by CAP
How EU economists are ‘killing Europeans through CHD’ Surprisingly, it’s not the acronyms that are at the root of the World Health Organization’s damning accusation, it’s our old friends, saturated fats. The common agricultural policy (CAP) was put in place by the powers that be in Europe, not just to confuse any non-economist who has…
Algae for biofuels: solving the land-use problem
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that there isn’t enough suitable land space to grow crops for food and feed as well as for biofuel, and to retain the forests and other land uses that sequester carbon in huge quantities. As the Nature blog ‘The Great Beyond’ points out, two articles published in Science in February argue…
Organic biofuels?
While discussing biofuels with a colleague the other week, I wondered whether there was any demand for organically grown biofuels, as people interested in protecting the environment are likely to be interested both in biofuels and in organic agriculture. Not long afterwards I came across a record in CAB Abstracts for an article1 on the…
Watch out – there’s a snakehead about!
A giant snakehead (Channa micropeltes) has been caught it British waterways causing alarm amongst anglers. Branded as "Sid Fishious" by the press, the catch featured in this week’s Angler’s Mail article "Killer Frankenfish caught in UK river!" The predatory piscean (all 3lbs of it!) was caught from the River Witham in Lincolnshire. Staff at the…
National Invasive Weed Awareness Week in USA
Sunday marks the beginning of the 9th annual "National Invasive Weeds Awareness Week" over in Washington D.C., USA. Looking at the packed agenda, the week looks to be well supported by all the players in US invasive species research, control and policy sectors. If you can not make any of the meetings and are…
Biofuel – the burning issues
It is still an open question whether biofuel can meet a significant proportion of the world’s energy needs, say John Fike and co-authors in a paper in CAB Reviews
Review of 2007
Happy New Year and a big thank you to all those who subscribe or read our blog. It was a good 2007 for the hand picked … and carefully sorted with a full calendar year of blogging under our belt, turning 1 year old on 2nd November. We posted 167 articles on a variety of…
GREENhouse appeal.
The Living Rainforest, near Newbury in the UK, has launched an appeal to find sponsors for the building of a state-of-the-art ‘Green Greenhouse’ building prototype. The aim is to raise £900,000 matched funding to complete construction of the £3.5m building. Unsustainable food/crop production and increasing energy costs mean that new methods of production must be…
Trade, biotechnology, biofuels, ethics: some issues that the sugar industry is thinking about
Having more or less recovered from the flu mentioned in Sarah’s blog entry of 22nd November (no, I wasn’t complaining I was dying — quite the opposite; I kept expecting to be fully recovered the next day and then finding I wasn’t), I went last week to the International Sugar Organization’s annual international seminar (see…