News brief

Going against the flow?	Ornamental innovation
The need for seed in Afghanistan	Testing blood for TB
Kosovo - the ongoing battle	Honeyed protection
Global warning	Salt tolerant durum wheat
Sex and bright lights?	Sweet smelling weed
New Year's resolution	Running water
New, tough rice for Uganda

Going against the flow?

A massive engineering scheme to pump billions of tonnes of water from the Yangtze river to the drought prone north was officially authorized by the government of China at the end of November. Three canals will carry water from the world's third largest river across 800 miles to the northern cities, including Beijing, where water shortages are becoming increasingly serious. In contrast, many millions of people regularly lose livestock, crops and livelihoods because of flooding from the Yangtze river. The engineering challenges are enormous and many fear the ecological consequences. The most optimistic trust that the project will bring relief to farmers in the flood prone Yangtze basin in the south of the country and to those struggling to grow their crops in the drought stricken north.

The need for seed in Afghanistan

Representatives of Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, FAO, CG Centres, US universities and NGOs have been taking part over the past 12 months in a needs assessment and planning process to rehabilitate the country's agricultural sector. At a meeting of the consortium of Future Harvest Centres at ICARDA in November, the results were reviewed. For example, lack of credit for quality seed and fertilizer, poor soil fertility due to neglect and damaged irrigation infrastructure were the main constraints identified by the soil and water assessment team. It is believed that horticulture holds considerable potential for improving livelihoods and could provide an alternative to poppy cultivation although investment would have to be made for storage, transporting and marketing infrastructure. The consortium, which is supported by USAID, has already done much to support Afghan farmers. For example, more than 3,500 tonnes of improved high quality wheat seed was shipped in time for the 2002 Spring planting and local farmers were contracted to produce 5000 tonnes of seed for autumn planting. ICARDA recently supplied 53 tonnes of foundation seed with 75 genotypes of bread and durum wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea and forage legumes, all adapted to Afghanistan's conditions, for sowing during the 2002/2003 cropping season. To date more than US$1 million has been injected into the economy of Afghanistan as part of the seed procurement, cleaning and distribution process.

Kosovo - the ongoing battle

As Kosovo recovers from the effects of war, one battle continues - that against the agricultural pests and diseases that are rife within the region. CABI Bioscience plant health specialist, Barbara Ritchie, points out that Kosovo is heavily dependent on agriculture but that the pest problems in parts of the province are appalling. For example, many fields and stores of potatoes are infested with Colorado beetle, a pest that is very difficult to control. Information about the organisms of quarantine significance is patchy and at least ten years out of date. CABI Bioscience has been running training programmes with Ministry officials and quarantine inspection staff to identify, combat and prepare for a range of agricultural pests and diseases, focusing on the region's key crops - potatoes, wheat, maize, fruit trees and vines.

Global warning

Scientists at Stanford University have discovered that, contrary to expectation, plants are unlikely to grow faster under conditions of higher atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and may not, therefore, be able to provide the convenient sink for surplus CO₂ that many had hoped for. The concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere has increased by 30% in the last 100 years and is expected to rise further. Experiments show that plants grow faster under such conditions but simply adding CO₂ and expecting to mirror future climate patterns is unrealistic. Temperature and rainfall are also likely to increase, at least in some regions, and also biologically available nitrogen. Results of trials by Stanford scientists show that when these are factored in, plant growth is actually suppressed.

Sex and bright lights?

Researchers in Australia and America are testing new IPM strategies, involving sex pheromones and fluorescent brighteners, for controlling diamondback moth (see also Biocontrol and a preference for peas). In Australia, CSIRO researchers, in collaboration with scientists from the EU, will target new microbial control products, based on fungal pathogens, for controlling key insect pests of brassicas. Sex pheromones of diamondback moth will be used in the design of a new inoculation chamber, that will infect the pest with a fungal pathogen. The chamber will be carefully designed to protect the pathogen whilst also trapping the moth for enough time to become infected. Once released from the chamber, the infected moth will disseminate the pathogen into the moth population.

Agricultural Research Service scientists in America are using viruses, with the addition of fluorescent brighteners, for controlling the pest. A newly discovered nucleopolyhedrovirus (NPV) of DBM, enhanced with fluorescent brighteners to make the virus more effective against the insect, is currently being tested. NPV's are specific to particular insect hosts and have already been tested for the control of helicoverpa pod borers (see From darkness into light). Until now, NPVs for DBM have not proved effective. But, with the addition of the fluorescent brighteners, the virus was found to be four times more effective against the DBM larvae.

New Year's resolution

A UK supermarket chain has decided that in future all its own brand chocolate will be made from Fairtrade cocoa. The Co-op is sure that its customers will accept that a luxury product, such as chocolate, should not be enjoyed by consumers at the expense of impoverished producers subject to the whims of the world market. Fairtrade agrees a guaranteed price with producers that provides them with a fair income and extra payments per tonne of cocoa produced financing community projects. In return it guarantees the consumer that the cocoa has been produced under fair working conditions and that they can enjoy the final product with a clear conscience.

New, tough rice for Uganda

A variety of rice, bred originally for poor soils in West Africa, has been tested in low fertility upland soils in the north, north east, east and southern parts of Uganda where it has performed well. The variety, Wab450 was released at the end of 2002 with two other varieties, Ita 325 and Ita 257 both of which have similar attributes. All are high yielding, tolerant to rice blast and yellow mottle virus and are more responsive to nitrogen according to plant breeder, Dr Justus Imanyuuha, at the Namulonge Agricultural Research Centre which has undertaken the research. The varieties will require a rainy season of 80-90 days and be ready for harvest between 105 to 115 days. They should also help to stop farmers having to drain swamps for growing rice.

Ornamental innovation

Scientists at Kasetsart University in Thailand have brought irradiation technology directly to the hands of growers of ornamental plants. In the past growers could use the benefits of new varieties achieved through irradiation only indirectly, by purchasing the mutant varieties from universities, government institutions or from large private companies. Convinced that growers themselves should have the opportunity to use the technology for their own direct benefit, plant breeder Siranut Lamseejan organized training that was given free to growers selected by the Department of Agricultural Extension. After training, growers were encouraged to bring plant materials for free radiation treatment at the University's Gamma Center. The results have been encouraging with growers demonstrating that their own skills and judgement, coupled with training, are sufficient to achieve new, interesting, and potentially commercially successful, variations in colour and form.

Testing blood for TB

An inexpensive and easy to use blood-based test for detecting TB in animals has been developed by the USDA-ARS National Animal Disease Center in Iowa, USA. Currently the only government-approved TB detection method is a skin test in which TB antigens are injected into the skin of the animal and any ensuing reaction must be measured 72 hours later. Difficult and costly enough in farm animals, this method can lead to injury and stress in wildlife species. Another test, using interferon gamma assay, is currently available for TB but can only be used in livestock, not wildlife, and only in conjunction with the skin test. The new test detects nitrite. This indicates nitric oxide which mammals produce as a natural response when fighting TB. Patent application for the new test is currently being sought. (see Bovine TB: a knotty problem?)

Honeyed protection

A cheap and relatively easy solution may have been found to protect farmland from marauding African elephants. Although thick-skinned, elephants have a few tender spots and quickly learn - and remember - to avoid trees that contain beehives. Research by Fritz Vollrath and Iain Douglas-Hamilton, in collaboration with the Mpala Research Station in Kenya, has shown that trees on which native log beehives have been hung at elephants' favourite browsing height, are protected, even if those hives do not actually contain bees at the time.

More information from www.save-the-elephants.org

Salt tolerant durum wheat

If the extensive field trials planned for next year are successful, farmers in salt-affected areas could soon be growing salt-tolerant durum wheat and enjoying the associated financial premium according to an announcement by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation) and NSW Agriculture. Scientists from the Enterprise Grains Australia wheat and durum breeding programme discovered an ancient salt-tolerant durum wheat variety originating from ancient Persia whose roots can exclude salt. They have been able to breed the tolerance mechanisms of the ancient wheat variety into modern breeding lines including current Australian varieties.

Sweet smelling weed

Credit: ICIPE

It was once an infamous weed that farmers uprooted and burned but now it is being cultivated for cash. Lemon grass, which can withstand harsh, dry weather conditions, is being cultivated by an NGO in south west Uganda - Ntungamo Women's Efforts to Save the Environment. The project, funded by Canada and the Global Environment Facility through UNDP, is supported by technical advice from ICIPE, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology. US$56,000 has been made available to set up a distillery and train local women in how to extract lemon grass oil. There are now demonstration gardens on a seven acre site. Outgrowers have planted a further 23 acres of lemon grass and the area under cultivation is expected to expand as demand grows. The oil is marketed in Europe and America for perfumes, cosmetics, flavouring, medicines, herbal teas and ointments. Scientists at ICIPE point out that lemon grass has the added advantages of helping to prevent soil erosion on the hills, a common roblem in south western Uganda, and it also repels mosquitoes.

Running water

It is not only a question of how much water is available but also how well it is managed that links water and poverty. Published last month by Britain's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and funded by the UK Government's Department for International Development, the Water Poverty Index is designed to make water management more effective, equitable and transparent. It provides a framework for measuring progress by linking availability of surface and groundwater resources, the access that people have to domestic water supply and sanitation, annual water withdrawals by sector, the capacity to use it effectively in terms of investment, existence of water management legislation, etc., and overall environmental considerations.