Don’t waste your energy!
It’s the middle of Energy Saving Week and the Energy Saving Trust has come up with a range of themes to encourage people to reduce their energy consumption by 20%. The Trust is government and private sector funded and the website features calculators, space for comment and plenty of contact details, yet Combat Climate Change…
Get set for a busy birdfeeder!
A recent article published in Bird Study gives some explanation of the varying numbers of birds you may see on your bird feeder from year to year. Dan Chamberlain, Andrew Gosler and David Glue from the British Trust for Ornithology and the Edward Gray Institute of Field Ornithology, Oxford investigated whether woodland species that feed…
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…
Carbon offsets – whats the deal?
At the UNWTO Conference on Climate Change and Tourism I attended in Davos, Switzerland last week, participants were requested to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of their travel and accommodation. Not an unreasonable request given the subject matter of the conference, and the fact that the conference itself was free to attend. But as reported…
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"…