Tag: damaging

Genetically Engineered Orange Juice

  • The Asian Citrus Psyllid is the insect that spreads the disease hurting Florida's citrus crops. (Photo courtesy of USDA-ARS)

Disease is damaging Florida citrus crops. And Mark Brush reports… researchers say the citrus growers need a new kind of disease resistant tree:

Transcript

Disease is damaging Florida citrus crops. And Mark Brush reports… researchers say the citrus growers need a new kind of disease resistant tree:

The disease is called Huanglongbing disease and that’s Chinese for “yellow shoot disease.” It’s spread by a little Asian insect.

Right now, about 4% of the citrus crop in Florida is hit by the disease , but researchers say it can wipe out whole orange groves if it’s not contained.
The National Research Council says long term – growers should plant genetically modified trees that resist the disease.
George Bruening is a plant pathologist at the University of California – Davis and he chaired the study for the National Research Council:

“And so if you had a genetically modified tree, Florida citrus and the people of Florida would be very much ahead, because there would be less use of insecticides, for example.”

Bruening says these types of genetically modified orange trees don’t exist yet. And it’ll take years to develop them and get government approval.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Size Does Matter, Research Suggests

  • Some scientists blame global warming for larger and more intense hurricanes. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

When it comes to hurricanes,
apparently size does matter.
New research suggests the bigger
the storm, the more tornadoes it
spawns. Tanya Ott reports:

Transcript

When it comes to hurricanes,
apparently size does matter.
New research suggests the bigger
the storm, the more tornadoes it
spawns. Tanya Ott reports:

Last year, Hurricane Ike ripped through Texas and the Midwest. It was a
relatively weak Category 2 storm. But it spun off a lot of tornadoes and
caused 32 billion dollars in damage.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of
Technology say they have a new model for predicting how many tornadoes a
hurricane will cause. Dr. Judith Curry says storm size – not intensity –
is the key.

“A lot of time people just think, oh it’s Category 5 or
it’s a Category 2, and they immediately calculate the risk to damage in
their head and the 5 is bad ande 2 isn’t so bad.”

But, Curry says, sometimes a 5 can be small and tight, and a 2,
especially one like Ike, can be big and produce a lot of tornadoes.

The study is published in this month’s Geophysical Research Letters.

Some scientists blame global warming for larger and more intense hurricanes.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tanya Ott.

Related Links

A Treatment for Bleeding Fish Disease?

  • Signs of VHS, from the Michigan DNR (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

A common treatment in fish hatcheries may slow – or even stop –

the spread of an invasive virus that’s killing fish across the Great Lakes.

Jonathan Brown has more:

Transcript

A common treatment in fish hatcheries may slow – or even stop –

the spread of an invasive virus that’s killing fish across the Great Lakes.

Jonathan Brown has more:

It’s called Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia. Humans can’t catch it, but it
causes internal bleeding in fish.

The virus is hurting the region’s multi-billion-dollar sport fishing industry.

Now, researchers are finding that adding iodine – a common practice in fish
hatcheries – could prevent the virus from spreading.

Steve LePan is a biologist for the state of New York. He says a study at
Cornell University found Walleye eggs treated with an iodine solution were
not infected with VHS.

“We can’t say for sure that it’s exclusively the iodine that kills it. There may
be other things we do to the eggs that also affect the virus, as well.”

Those ‘other’ treatments include bathing Walleye eggs in Tannic Acid for a
few minutes before incubation.

LePan says there’s still a lot to learn about VHS, but he’s cautiously
optimistic that hatcheries can breed fish uninfected by the disease.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jonathan Brown.

Related Links

Where the Wild Things Are…in Trouble

  • East Pioneers, MT (Photo courtesy of the Campaign for America's Wilderness)

An environmental group is calling on Congress
to better protect some of the last wilderness areas of
the lower 48 states. Lester Graham reports the group
identifies ten wild spots it says are in trouble:

Transcript

An environmental group is calling on Congress
to better protect some of the last wilderness areas of
the lower 48 states. Lester Graham reports the group
identifies ten wild spots it says are in trouble:

The group, Campaign for America’s Wilderness, reports on pristine places that are
facing pressures from development and other actions the group sees as threatening.

Mike Matz heads up the environmental group. He says although there are some
restrictions on how the public lands are used, sometimes they’re not enough.

“The land managers often times need some additional tools to be able to prevent certain
damaging activities, whether it’s logging on national forests or mining on public lands.
And one of the most pervasive threats we see today is from off-road-vehicle
traffic that is rampant and unregulated.”

Off-road-vehicles are allowed on many of the sites, but Matz says the riders don’t
always stay on the trails and end up damaging areas. The group points out that
only 2.5% of the continental U.S. is protected as wilderness.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links