Tag: long

Shape-Shifting Fruits and Veggies

  • van der Knaap's team tests tomato starts for the SUN gene - the gene they isolated. SUN is responsible for tomato length. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Vegetables can be really odd shapes.
But what if you could alter fruits
and vegetables into just about any
shape you wanted? Some avid gardeners
come up with strange looking hybrids,
but Julie Grant talked with a researcher
who’s taking the shape of produce to
a whole new level:

Transcript

It’s time to start planting your garden this year. But maybe you’re tired of long, thin
carrots, huge watermelons, and round tomatoes. Julie Grant spoke with one researcher
who’s trying to give us some more options in the shape of fruits and veggies:

Ester van der Knaap steps gingerly around the greenhouse.

We’re at the Ohio State Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.
The plants here are as tall as we are.

Van Der Knaap points out short, round tomatoes – and some odd-looking long, thin
ones.

“That’s one gene. One gene can make that difference.”

Van der Knaap’s team discovered that gene and isolated it. They call it the SUN gene.
And they’ve been able to clone it in tomatoes.

“You see this one is pretty round. It does not have the SUN gene. And that first one
makes a very elongated fruit, and it does have the SUN gene.”

Van der Knaap’s research could lead to square-shapes – something she thinks the
tomato industry might like. Square tomatoes fit better into packages. And, overall,
square tomatoes might be easier to work with than the common round tomatoes.

“They are mechanically harvested. So if you have a very round tomato, it would roll off
conveyor belts, it’s not very handy.”

So far money for her research has come from the National Science Foundation – not big
ag.

Van Der Knaap is quick to note – her tomatoes are not genetically modified.

You might remember the Calgene tomato which was made firmer by manipulating the
tomato genes with a gene from chickens. Van der Knapp’s just isolating the genes that affect the
shape of the tomatoes. Turning them on or off alters the shape.

Designer fruit shapes are gaining popularity. Check out any seed catalog, and there’s
a huge variety – some large and segmented, some pear-shaped, some oval, some
resembling chili peppers.

People have been cross-breeding tomatoes to make the shapes they want for a long
time. But this is not the same thing.

“It’s just funny, ‘cause my brother was working with some genetic things with tomatoes in
our attic.”

Dick Alford is a chef and professor of hospitality management at the University of Akron.

The difference between what his brother – and lots of other folks have been doing – and
what van der Knaap is doing is the difference between cross-breeding and locating a
specific gene that affects the shape of tomatoes.

The only other gene like this that’s been found so far was discovered by van der Knaap’s
advisor at Cornell University.

[sound of a kitchen and cutting veggies]

Chef Alford watches students as they cut yellow crookneck squash and carrots.

They’re trying to make uniform, symmetrical shapes out of curvy and pointed vegetables.
There’s a lot of waste. Chef Alford hates to see so much get thrown away. So he’s got
a request of Dr. van der Knaap.

“If we could get square carrots, it would be great. If you could get a nice long, a tomato
as long as a cucumber, where you could get 20 or 30 slices out of it, it would be great.”

In a country that loves hamburgers, Van der Knaap has heard that request before. But
the long, thin tomato hasn’t worked out just yet. She says there’s more genetics to be
studied.

Once we know all the genes responsible for making different shapes in tomatoes, Van
der Knaap says we’ll have a better idea of what controls the shape of other crops, such
peppers, cucumbers, and gourds.

And maybe then we’ll get those square carrots.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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A New Approach to Dairy Farming

  • At Hawthorne Valley Farm, calves are raised with their mothers - unlike other dairy farms (Photo by Kinna Ohman)

Some cutting edge farmers are stepping
away from concentrating on only production of
meat and milk on their farms. They’re starting
to focus on ways to give their animals healthy,
long lives. And they’re finding more benefits
than they ever imagined. Kinna Ohman reports:

Transcript

Some cutting edge farmers are stepping
away from concentrating on only production of
meat and milk on their farms. They’re starting
to focus on ways to give their animals healthy,
long lives. And they’re finding more benefits
than they ever imagined. Kinna Ohman reports:

The idea of dairy cows grazing out in a pasture is rare – even though advertisers use this
scene all the time to sell us cheese and milk.

The reality is, most dairy cows spend their lives inside big sheds. They’re pushed to produce a lot of milk. And
they often die a premature death.

(cows mooing)

So there’s something relaxing about a farm like Hawthorne Valley. Maybe it’s just
knowing places like these still exist.

The farm’s surrounded by the rolling hills of New York’s Hudson Valley. There’s a big
red barn. Cows graze out in green pastures. And this year? You’ll even see some little
calves hanging out with their mothers.

Steffen Schneider’s grinning because of those little calves. He’s the dairy farm manager
at Hawthorne Valley. He’s standing at a pasture fence. And he can’t take his eyes off the scene
in front of him.

“It’s a great sight to see a little herd of calves galloping like little kids right through
the herd and the mother looking, being very proud of their ones. This mother right
here we’re looking at Patricia, she has her eye exactly on her own baby there,
Pepper, he’s one of those guys lying right there. Yeah, it’s wonderful.”

Schneider started letting his cows bring up their calves around a year ago. But that’s
really rare in the dairy industry.

At most farms, they take calves away from their mothers within a day of being born.
That’s because farmers want to keep their cows in milk production. They don’t want to waste that
milk on the calves. That push for high milk production does take a toll on dairy cows.

Kent Anderson’s a veterinarian who works on these types of farms. He says he
understand the business needs of farmers. But he says its difficult seeing cows pushed so
hard.

“But one thing that distresses me a bit is that a normal bovine should have five, ten,
twelve, productive years. But as agriculture changes, the average dairy cow makes it
two and a half lactations, which means, she’s not even 5 years old, and she’s gone.”

Many farmers think that’s the best way to run their dairy farms.

But Steffen Schneider says he wants to balance business with the natural needs of his
animals. And letting his cows raise their calves is just one more step. He says the cows
are less stressed. And they’re seeing some great changes in the calves.

“Within a few weeks, it was amazing to watch how healthy those calves were, how
quickly they grew. They were like different animals than we were used to seeing in
our pens. And so much more awake in their senses, so much stronger limbs. Just
much more vibrant animals.”

Schneider wonders how these improvements will help the calves as they become adults.
And even how it could help the quality of their milk. But more than anything else, he just
seems amazed it took him twenty five years to take this step.

“It’s really crazy that through just greed we don’t just expose those calves to their
mothers. And think we need every single last drop of milk – forgetting the only
reason the milk even comes in is because the cow gives birth. I’m really very happy
I finally, we finally, did it.”

Only a small group of dairy farmers are letting their cows bring up their young. But they hope to show other farmers and consumers there is a way to combine business with a more natural life for their animals.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

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Co2 Crops Not Tops

  • Theories that crops, such as the corn in Illinois, will benefit from increases in CO2 might not be as good as predicted. (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Carbon dioxide emissions from our cars and factories are the number one
cause of global warming. Scientists have long theorized that more of
the gas in the atmosphere could actually help farmers grow bigger
plants. But new research from America’s Breadbasket is challenging
that assumption. David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Carbon dioxide emissions from our cars and factories are the number one
cause of global warming. Scientists have long theorized that more of
the gas in the atmosphere could actually help farmers grow bigger
plants. But new research from America’s Breadbasket is challenging
that assumption. David Sommerstein reports:


Lin Warfel’s a fourth generation farmer in east-central Illinois. His
fields are flat and endless, the soil chunky and black and just about
the best in the world. An Interstate highway groans on one side of his
cornfield:


“In my career, early on, there was no Interstate past my farm.”


As traffic increased over the years, Warfel noticed a strange
phenomenon. The crops closer to the Interstate grew bigger than those
further away:


“They respond to the carbon dioxide. They can stay greener longer than
plants out into the field.”


OK… so, here’s a high school biology reminder: carbon dioxide, along
with water and sun, is an ingredient in photosynthesis, which makes
plants grow.


Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also the biggest cause
of global warming. So scientists thought, huh, more carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, bigger crops. They even coined a term: the “carbon
dioxide fertilization effect:”


“The effects of CO2 on crop yields are fairly well-understood.”


The Department of Energy’s Jeff Amthor has studied this stuff since the
1980s:


“We would expect that by the year 2050, that the increase in CO2 alone
would probably increase yields by about 10 to 15% in soybean, wheat and
rice relative to today’s yield, with nothing else changing.”


Other things are changing, like hotter temperatures and more drought.
But the predominant thinking has been that the increased carbon dioxide
will moderate those negative factors, maybe even outweigh them. A
recent study by the American Economic Review concluded U.S. agriculture
profits will grow by more than a billion dollars over the next century,
due to global warming. Most of this is based on experiments done in
controlled, greenhouse conditions, but new research done in real fields
is challenging the assumptions:


“Where you’re standing is what we refer to as our global change
research facility on the south farms of the University of Illinois.”


That’s biologist Steve Long. He runs what’s called the SoyFACE project
at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Here, Long can
actually pipe carbon dioxide gas out to the fields, and grow real crops
in an atmosphere of the future.


Long strolls out to one of 16 test plots and stop at a white pipe
sticking out of the ground:


“This is one of the pipes where the carbon dioxide actually comes up
and then it will go out into the field here.”


The carbon dioxide pipes circle a plot about the size of a tennis
court. They release the gas over the crops. Computers monitor the air
to keep the concentrations steady:


“And the current atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is about
380 parts per million. We’re raising that to the level which is
expected for the year 2050, which is about 550 parts per million.”


Long has grown the crops of 2050 for 5 years now. His results
shocked him. The plants did grow bigger. They survived longer
into the fall, but the yields were 50% lower than expected. And
pests thrived. The Western corn rootworm, for example, laid
twice as many eggs:


“Japanese beetle, which eats quite a lot of the leaves of soybeans, do
twice as well under these elevated CO2 conditions. They live longer. They
produce many more young. The yield increases we’ve seen could start to be
counteracted by those increased pest problems.”


Long’s results found supporters and critics when published in
Science magazine last summer. Some researchers say extra CO2
could hurt agriculture more than it helps because weeds become more
aggressive.


The Department of Energy’s Jeff Amthor co-wrote a paper challenging the
interpretation of Long’s data. But he agrees more work needs to be
done in real-life conditions:


“The bigger questions that are now before us are the interactions of CO2 with
warming and change in precip, changes in weed communities, changes in
insect communities, changes in disease outbreak. There are a lot more
questions there than there are answers.”


Amthor says what’s at stake is our future food supply.


For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Duck Populations Recover From Drought

Waterfowl hunters in the Great Lakes region will likely have better luck this year. The duck populations spending the summer in Canada are up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:

Transcript

Waterfowl hunters in the Great Lakes region will likely have better
luck this year. The duck
populations spending the summer in Canada are up. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham has more:


The duck populations suffered as many of the prairie potholes and small
ponds in much of
Canada’s prairies dried during the past few years. But things this
year are different. Henry
Murkin is chief biologist with Ducks Unlimited – Canada.


“What’s happened is water’s come back to the breeding grounds and the
ducks have come back
as well.”


Murkin says many waterfowl have recovered from the cyclical dry spell.


“Most species are up and they’re either at or very near to their
long-term averages.”


The mallard duck count was up 30 percent over last year. Other
waterfowl are also doing better.
Murkin says the wet-dry conditions are part of the ducks’ natural
cycles. He says he’s more
worried about habitat loss for the waterfowl in both the U.S. and
Canada.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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