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Agnet April 20/04 -- II
Future prospects for biotech crops
French maize group says GMO separation possible
DA approves list of 17 GMO products that may be imported
How extremists are ruining Earth Day
Anti-GM campaign heightened
Brazil maps arabica coffee genome to improve quality
UC Riverside researchers improve drought tolerance in plants
More useful plants may sprout from gene role discovery
Saving the seed or saving romantic assumptions
Phantom fears’ on GM hit Europe
Biotech research helps create knowledge-based economy
New ARS facility dedicated in Colorado
Birth weights higher after pesticide ban
Specialist: World should say yes to no-till farming
[ISO-8859-1] Plant Protection Policy Directives
Arabidopsis thaliana has the enzymatic machinery for replicating representative viroid species of the family Pospiviroidae
Nitrogen-bonded aromatics in soil organic matter and their implications for a yield decline in intensive rice cropping
Arabidopsis EIN3-binding F-box 1 and 2 form ubiquitin-protein ligases that repress ethylene action and promote growth by directing EIN3 degradation
Engineering tropane biosynthetic pathway in Hyoscyamus niger hairy root cultures
The Arabidopsis repressor of light signaling, COP1, is regulated by nuclear exclusion: Mutational analysis by bioluminescence resonance energy transfer
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Future prospects for biotech crops
April 20, 2004
EuropaBio
http://www.europabio.org/pages/ne_200404.asp
By 2050 the world will have to at least double food production in order to feed 9 billion people. To do this sustainably the world should not have to increase the land area used today for agriculture, according to Clive James, Chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). Speaking at a press lunch today in Brussels, Dr James said that “No Single approach will provide a solution to food, feed and fiber security - conventional crop improvement alone will not double food production by 2050, biotech crops although not a panacea are essential.” “There is cause for cautious optimism that the global area of biotech crops and the number of farmers planting them will continue to grow in 2004 and beyond,” James said. Within the next five years, ISAAA predicts that at least 10 million farmers in 25 or more countries will plant 100 million hectares of biotech crops. In 2003, 3.4 billion people – more than half the world’s population - lived in countries where biotech crops were approved, grown and delivered significant benefits to farmers and society. According to Clive James “Seven million farmers in 18 countries - more than 85% are resource-poor farmers in the developing world - now plant biotech crops, up from 6 million in 16 countries in 2002. Almost one-third of the global biotech crop area is grown in developing countries, up from one-quarter last year.”
French maize group says GMO separation possible
April 20, 2004
Reuters
David Evans
PARIS - Tests by France's maize growers association AGPM have, according to the group, shown genetically-modified (GMO) grain can be cultivated beside conventional strains with almost no cross contamination.
Presenting the results of a two-year study into the possibility of segregating GMO and non-GMO maize varieties, AGPM was also cited as saying it had developed a system to keep the two grain types apart through the production chain from field to customer, adding, "The results obtained show that it is possible to manage the co-existence of growing GMO maize and conventional maize and that it is compatible with European labelling rules."
The AGPM was further cited as saying that in its trials only a small amount of conventional maize grown immediately adjacent to the GMO variety broke the 0.9 percent threshold.
It said it had also shown that from harvesting through drying, silo storage and delivery to the customer, the 0.9 percent ceiling could be maintained at each stage by proper record keeping and strict controls.
The extra cost of the segregation was estimated at between 2.5 and five percent.
DA approves list of 17 GMO products that may be imported
April 20, 2004
The Philippine Star
Rocel C. Felix
The Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), an agency attached to the Department of Agriculture (DA), was cited as approving recently 17 transformation events (TEs) of genetically modified (GM) crops for commercial use as food, feed or processing materials in the Philippines.
The story says that a report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service’s Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) shows that BPI approved last Feb. 4 the 17 TEs including corn, soybean, canola, potato and cotton.
The approval allows importers to bring into the country these commodities for as long as they contain amounts as stipulated in the approved TEs, the USDA said.
Prior to this, the approval was limited to corn and soybeans shipped from the US to the Philippines.
Dr. Randy A. Hautea, global coordinator of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), was cited as saying the Philippines has been actually importing GM crops from the US for several months now.
The USDA said one TE was also approved for commercial planting in the Philippines. This involves the commercial production of Bt corn by American firm Pioneer Hi-Bred Philippines Inc.
How extremists are ruining Earth Day
April 20, 2004
Scripps Howard News Service
Henry I. Miller
The first Earth Day celebration was held in 1970 as a "symbol of environmental responsibility and stewardship." In the spirit of the time, it was a touchy-feely, consciousness-raising experience, and most activities were organized at the grass-roots level.
Earth Day is now more about dire prediction than sober reflection and provides an opportunity for environmental extremists to hog the spotlight, dish anti-technology dirt and proselytize. A favorite target this year is biotechnology, which one activist has characterized as threatening "a form of annihilation every bit as deadly as nuclear holocaust."
Greenpeace demands no less than biotech products' "complete elimination (from) the food supply and the environment." Some have taken this message so seriously as to vandalize field trials at universities and on private farms.
Who could tell from such apocalyptic language and extreme actions that what is at issue are products like papayas, corn and cotton plants genetically improved to resist pests, grow under adverse climatic conditions and with fewer agricultural chemicals and to give higher yields.
The extremists' eco-babble ignores the scientific consensus that gene-splicing, the newest manifestation of biotechnology, is a refinement of less precise methods of genetic modification that have been applied for more than a century. The National Research Council put the new biotechnology in perspective in a 1989 analysis:
"With classical techniques of gene transfer, a variable number of genes can be transferred, the number depending on the mechanism of transfer; but predicting the precise number or the traits that have been transferred is difficult, and we cannot always predict the (characteristics) that will result. With organisms modified by molecular methods, we are in a better, if not perfect, position to predict the (characteristics)."
In other words, the newer techniques are more precise and more predictable and often yield a safer product.
Farmers and the health of the environment have been the major beneficiaries of the dozens of gene-spliced plants now on the market. According to a report on gene-spliced crops from the USDA's Economic Research Service, the adoption of herbicide-tolerant soybeans was associated with "increases in yields" and "significant decreases in herbicide use," and "increases in adoption of (gene-spliced) cotton resistant to insects in the southeastern United States were associated with significant increases in yields and profits and decreased insecticide use."
An innovation that decreases agricultural "inputs" _ all the factors that contribute to the costs of food production _ benefits everyone involved in the pathway from the dirt to the dinner plate. Increased yields are environmentally important because they obviate the need to put additional land such as forests under cultivation. In addition, they permit water to be used more efficiently, and encourage wider use of no-till cultivation, which decreases soil erosion.
In spite of these achievements and an extraordinary safety record, the row has been tough to hoe. In Europe, there is widespread public and political opposition to importing grains grown from gene-spliced seeds. Gene-spliced foods have been banished by major supermarket chains. Governments have imposed moratoria on commercial-scale cultivation of plants, and regulatory approvals have ground to a halt. In the United States as well, regulators have imposed overly strict, unscientific rules on agricultural and food research that hinder new product development.
The coup de grace may have been administered to agricultural biotechnology by the United Nations' forays into biotechnology regulation. The U.N.'s self-designated role as the world's bio-police imposes regulatory requirements for both field testing of new plant varieties and for foods that no conventionally-modified food could _ or should _ meet.
Unscientific, unreasonable regulations and standards harm the environment and public health, stifling the development of environmentally friendly innovations that can increase agricultural productivity, help clean up toxic wastes, conserve water and supplant agricultural chemicals. U.N. experts themselves warn that the greatest single threat to the planet's environment comes from the world's burgeoning population and its demand that ever more land be brought into food production.
Earth Day provides an opportunity for reflection about our planet _ including the well-being of the humans who populate it. Science and technology must play vital roles, and anyone who mindlessly rejects and disparages them is out of step with the occasion.
Anti-GM campaign heightened
April 20, 2004
Green Consumer Guide
www.greenconsumerguide.com
Greenpeace has announced plans to step up its campaign against genetically modified foods, as new laws come into effect across the European Union. The latest directive (EU Regulation 1829/2003), which covers traceability and labelling, does not require meat or milk from an animal fed on GMOs to be labelled as GM-produce – a condition opposed by campaigners.
"With half the world's soya, which is widely used in food products and animal feed, now GE, the urgency is clear for all to see," said Dan Hindsgaul from Greenpeace.
"If seed contamination is legalised through thresholds, there will soon be no choice left for anybody, be they farmer or consumer," added Eric Gall, political advisor at Greenpeace EU unit. "Consumer choice will only be secured when seeds and European agriculture are protected from genetic contamination, and when GM seed companies can be held liable for any damage caused by their products to the environment and to organic and conventional farmers."
Brazil maps arabica coffee genome to improve quality
April 20, 2004
Reuters
Peter Blackburn
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Project coordinator Alan Carvalho Andrade of the government's Agricultural Research Agency (Embrapa) was cited as telling Reuters that Brazilian scientists finished mapping the arabica coffee genome with the aim of raising the tree's resistance to disease and harsh weather and improving quality, adding, "The object is to improve coffee quality and yields by protecting trees from disease and weather. We can now start with coffee institutions, the functional phase which is about how to use the data bank on the 35,000 genes to improve coffee quality."
The story says that a coffee genome is made up of 11 chromosomes which are packed with genes and form a blueprint for the beverage's taste, texture, flavor and other qualities.
During the past two years, scientists from Brazil, the world's biggest coffee grower and exporter, produced 200,000 genetic sequences from which 35,000 genes were identified. Many of the genes recur in roots, branches and leaves of coffee trees.
Andrade was further cited as saying it was uncertain how long it would take to start commercial production of improved coffee varieties.
Researchers have estimated that cost savings of between 50 and 100 percent could be made on herbicides, pesticides and other crop chemicals, and that productivity could be raised by between 30 and 50 percent.
UC Riverside researchers improve drought tolerance in plants
April 19, 2004
UC Riverside News
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=781
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – www.ucr.edu – University of California, Riverside researchers reported the development of technology that increases crop drought tolerance by decreasing the amount of an enzyme that is responsible for recycling vitamin C.
Biochemist Daniel R. Gallie, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, Riverside together with Zhong Chen of his research group reported their findings in the May issue of The Plant Cell .
In the study, the authors reasoned that decreasing the amount of the enzyme dehydroascorbate reductase or DHAR would reduce the ability of plants to recycle vitamin C, making them more drought tolerant through improved water conservation. The researchers accomplished this by using the plant's own gene to decrease the amount of the enzyme three fold.
Researchers used tobacco as a model for crops that are highly sensitive to drought conditions.
“However, our discovery should be applicable to most if not all crop species as the role of vitamin C is highly conserved among plants,” said Gallie.
In work published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gallie and his research team reported that the level of vitamin C could be boosted by increasing the amount of this same enzyme.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and California Agricultural Experiment Station funded the six years of research that led to the current findings.
Vitamin C serves as an important antioxidant in plants as it does in humans and among its many functions in both, it destroys reactive oxygen species that can otherwise damage or even kill cells. “Once used, vitamin C must be regenerated otherwise it is irrevocably lost. The enzyme dehydroascorbate reductase, or DHAR, plays a critical role in this recycling process,” explained Gallie.
Reactive oxygen species are produced in plants typically following exposure to environmental conditions such as drought, cold, or air pollution. Plants sense drought conditions by the buildup in reactive oxygen species and then respond by reducing the amount of water that escapes from their leaves. Reducing the amount of DHAR decreases the ability of the plant to recycle vitamin C, thus reducing the ability to eliminate the buildup in reactive oxygen species that occurs with the onset of a drought.
“This reduction in vitamin C recycling causes plants to be highly responsive to dry growth conditions by reducing the rate of water that escapes from their leaves. Thus, they are better able to grow with less water and survive a drought,” said Gallie.
“Through use of this technology, we are helping crops to conserve water resources. In a way, we are assisting them to be better water managers, which is important for crops growing in areas that can experience erratic rainfall,” he added. “This discovery will assist farmers who depend on rainwater for their crops during those years when rainfall is low. It will also assist farmers who irrigate their crops to conserve water, which is important in a state like California where rapid population growth continues to increase the demand on this scare resource. Finally, this discovery should help farmers who grow crops in arid areas, such as exists in many third-world countries.”
The onset of global warming is another development that adds impact to Gallie’s research findings. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web site states that the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about one degree Fahrenheit in the past century, with most of the warming occurring during the past two decades. The EPA suggests that most of the warming over the last 50 years can be attributed to human activities, but cautions that uncertainties remain about exactly how earth’s climate is responding.
“Increasing drought tolerance in crops is highly valuable to U.S. and world agriculture now and will be even more critical as our environment continues to change as a consequence of global warming,” said Gallie.
The University of California, Riverside is a major research institution and a national center for the humanities. Key areas of research include nanotechnology, genomics, environmental studies, digital arts and sustainable growth and development. With a current undergraduate and graduate enrollment of nearly 17,000, the campus is projected to grow to 21,000 students by 2010. Located in the heart of inland Southern California, the nearly 1,200-acre, park-like campus is at the center of the region's economic development. Visit www.ucr.edu or call 909-787-5185 for more information. Media sources are available at http://www.mediasources.ucr.edu/.
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More useful plants may sprout from gene role discovery
April 19, 2004
Purdue University News
Susan A. Steeves
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - It may be possible to alter plants so they are more nutritious and easier to process without weakening them so much they fall over, according to Purdue University researchers who found a new twist in a plant formation biochemical pathway.
Decreasing the amount of two acids in plant cell walls may enhance livestock feed digestibility for better nutrition, while increasing the potential uses of various plants, said Clint Chapple, Purdue biochemistry professor.
The findings, published in a recent issue of The Plant Cell, revise scientific thinking about the role of ferulic and sinapic acids in building plant cell walls. For many years, researchers believed that the two acids contributed to the production of lignin, the principal structural component of plant cell walls.
"It's the hardening substance that makes the difference between a piece of celery and a piece of wood," Chapple said.
Based on laboratory studies, Chapple and his team found that an enzyme converts two molecules into the acids, which then are incorporated into cell walls. This indicates that sinapic and ferulic acids are end products rather than intermediates, or building blocks, in an essential biochemical pathway for cell wall construction, Chapple said.
"Now that we know the acids are not part of the lignin pathway, it may be possible to change cell walls without harming the plant," he said. "It will be easy to isolate and alter the corresponding gene in other plants, including those used for livestock feed such as corn."
The main focus of the research is to create more useful plants. In normal plants, cross linking of lignin, ferulic acid and other substances forms a strong bond that make cell walls difficult to break down.
But Chapple said he believes that cell walls could be manipulated so that nutrients in livestock feed are more easily absorbed into the digestive tract.
One clue that led Chapple's team to its finding came when the scientists looked at leaves from normal and mutant Arabidopsis thaliana plants under ultraviolet lights. The normal Arabidopsis leaves appear blue-green under UV light. Mutants, which lack a derivative of sinapic acid, appeared red under the UV light. This enabled the researchers to identify the gene responsible for synthesis of sinapic and ferulic acids, compounds that subsequently are cross-linked into cell walls.
Altering the gene that programs an enzyme involved in creation of ferulic acid and sinapic acid might be a way to change cell wall make up, Chapple said. His team cloned the gene, called REDUCED EPIDERMAL FLUORESCENCE1 (REF1), which encodes an enzyme that is a member of the aldehyde dehydrogenase family. A similar enzyme helps the human body detoxify alcohol.
"People thought that we'd have a hard time manipulating ferulic acid in corn cell walls because that might mess around with lignin production and the plants would fall over," Chapple said about earlier hypotheses on producing more digestible animal feed.
The new findings may solve some agriculture production problems, he said.
"We appear to be reaching the limits of productivity in terms of bushels per acre," Chapple said. "You can only plant things so close together; plants can only grow so big. If a seed company were able to increase yield per acre by 1 percent, that's a big improvement."
In contrast, if the quality of a crop or its digestibility could be altered, that would be a significant benefit to farmers and their livestock.
"You could feed a cow more, but even that has a limit because it will only eat so much," Chapple said. "Or you could make what the cow eats more energy-rich by improving the digestibility."
The other researchers involved in this study were: Ramesh Nair, now with Pioneer Hi-Bred International; Kristen Bastress, Duke University graduate student; Max Ruegger, now with Dow AgroSciences; and Jeff Denault, Eli Lilly and Co. research scientist. The U.S. Department of Energy's Division of Energy Biosciences and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Initiative provided funding for this research.
Saving the seed or saving romantic assumptions
April 19, 2004
ButterfliesandWheels.com
Thomas R. DeGregori
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=56
Via AgBioView at www.agbioworld.org
Modern agriculture is increasingly being used as an all encompassing category of evil by critics of globalization and transgenic (genetically modified) food crops, and by street protestors and their mentors and organizers. Implicit in the protest rhetoric is a dichotomy between modern agronomy (assumed to be large corporate enterprises either farming or selling to farmers) and small self-sufficient farmers, who replant their own seeds from year-to-year and have little or no reliance on the market for inputs.
The difference between the two presumed types of agriculture could not be more stark in the minds of the believers. The enemy is the monopolistic seed corporations and industrial farms that are mechanized, use purchased inputs including synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides, and are by definition "corporate polluters." In using commercially acquired industrial inputs, modern agriculture has removed some vital essence from our foodcrops and become divorced from the natural ecological environment. In contrast, the small scale traditional agriculturalist follows more benign practices, substituting labor for technology, and otherwise using more natural time-tested practices and inputs that preserve the soil and do not pollute the environment. Commercial "organic" farmers in developed countries are seen as a permitted exception to the agribusiness category, as they are assumed to be following a regimen that is the larger scale environmental equivalent of traditional agriculture. Even here, among the "organic" enthusiasts, there are purists who bemoan the take-over of the movement by large corporate enterprises and advocate buying from small local producers even if the price is significantly higher. To these purists, "organic food is being openly accused of selling its soul" (Vidal 2003). Most of us who grew up in the United States assumed that "soul food" was an expression used by Black Americans to describe home cooking, not to be taken literally and definitely not an appellation reserved exclusively for food grown with manure.
SAVE THE SEED has become the slogan of choice for those opposed to modern agriculture in general, and genetically modified crops in particular. The claim is made that the vast majority of the world's farmers plant only seeds from their previous harvest, as those who went before them have been doing for the several millennia since agriculture began in their region. The FAO indicates that there are 1.4 billion farmers who save seed for planting from harvest to harvest. Unfortunately, FAO does not distinguish between farmers who never have bought seeds, and farmers who go into the market one year and replant it for one or more years until a new higher yielding is available, or a new disease-resistant variety becomes necessary. Nor does it identify the very common practice of poorer farmers in many regions who in replanting their seeds will mix with it anywhere from 40 to 60% of a purchased variety. Even more affluent farmers have for the last 4 decades been crossing modern varieties with local ones, providing the Green Revolution seed package with far greater diversity than the critics seem to be aware.
The idea that agriculture can in any way be "natural" or in "harmony with nature" is silly if not downright pernicious. This does not mean that we are free to do whatever we wish and not be concerned with the consequences. It does mean that in transforming nature we have to acquire a scientific understanding of as many dimensions of agriculture and the environment as possible, and then devise and continually revise rules of the game so that we can grow and raise our food sustainably. In agriculture, we are concentrating nutrient that is also nutrient for birds, rats, insects, fungus, bacteria and viruses. In a word we have to protect the plant which historically has required a "pesticide" of some sort or another in addition to the plant's natural defenses. When we grow a plant in one location and eat it in another, we are mining and transporting soil nutrient which has to be replenished. If nature doesn't provide sufficient nutrient in usable form, as is the case with nitrogen, then humans have to produce it (Smil 2000 and 2001). The question then is - who owns nature - particularly when an ownership claim is made by those who oppose patenting life forms (Brown 2003).
My first encounter with agriculture in a developing country was four decades ago in 1962 in the Gezira scheme in the Sudan in Africa. There the farmers in an agricultural scheme irrigated by the Blue Nile were required to buy cotton seeds that were grown over a thousand miles away in a delta on the Red Sea. Farmers not only did not replant their own seed, they were not allowed to do so; they were even required to dig up the roots of the cotton plants in rock hard soil and burn them in the blistering sun, in order to keep disease under control. This requirement was not out of any bureaucratic or authoritarian impulse, but a necessity to prevent an outbreak of a disease which had the potential to destroy the entire crop for everyone in the project.
Some of the reasons that farmers do not replant their own seed or would prefer not to do so if an alternative were available:
Disease is carried over from one crop to another as are the seeds of competitors. Ironically, commercial farmers in developed countries are often more able to save seed from year to year because of better disease management and safer storage - see point 8 below.
Post harvest losses - Nobody as far as I know has trained rats, insects and microorganisms to distinguish between the crop that farmers store to eat and that portion which will be saved for replanting the next year, providing all of them with continuing life sustaining nutrients.
Genetic deterioration - Even without an understanding of all the mechanisms of replication, most farmers recognize that inbreeding a crop can lead to its deterioration over time (Heisey and Brennan 1991 and LSN 2003). Even some farmers who might fit the SAVE THE SEED definition of "traditional" will exchange seeds among themselves.
Where the climate permits, farmers will plant a succession of crops, sometimes different varieties of the same crop. They may plant an IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) variety of rice when irrigating, and a domestically bred variety for a monsoon crop. And they may have a third crop of an entirely different food crop. Saving the seeds for three different crops plus possibly those for the kitchen garden is not always easy or convenient.
Contrary to the slogans of the urban white European and North American males who dominate the activists' movement, farmers are not naive simpletons in need of the protection of those who know nothing about raising food. Farmers actively seek crop improvements such as higher yields, disease resistance, or improved quality and marketability. Remember the doomsday predictions about the Green Revolution? Even the most techno enthusiasts among us (like myself) were surprised at the speed and extent to which farmers defined as "traditional" adopted the Green Revolution technological package when credit was available.
Many farmers in Africa (if farmers anywhere fit the activist definition, it would be in sub Saharan Africa) have switched to hybrid maize, making it a major food crop (Byerlee and Eicher 1997). Hybrid maize essentially requires annual purchase of seeds, as hybrids do not breed true to form in the field. In East Africa, new banana trees are grown from tissue cultures to break the cycle of fungal infestation while research is conducted in creating transgenic disease-resistant varieties.
Cleaning seeds and coating them with pesticides is often the most efficient form of pest control and it can be done better and more safely by professionals.
Ironically, saving seed from harvest to harvest is on the increase in Europe where many of the urban SAVE THE SEED activists live. European farmers have a higher level of crop protection, which reduces the possibility of carry-over diseases, and they have access to mobile seed processors who can do the necessary on-the-farm seed preparation which is impossible in most poorer regions. In the region with militant advocates for the immutable farmers' right from time immemorial to replant their own seeds, farmers are required to pay fees for using their own seed where that seed is protected by plant breeders' rights. The 1994 European Union's legislation allowed farmers to pay a "sensibly lower remuneration" for the use of farm saved seed. These fees are collected in the United Kingdom by "farmers' unions and mobile seed processors, who are contracted to collect the farm saved seed payments. Mobile seed processors move from farm to farm cleaning and treating farm saved seed for farmers" (Turner 2003).
The specialization of some farmers (or farmers in some regions) in seed production for planting by other farmers has a much longer history than most of us realize. According to Tripp, "trade in seed is literally as old as agriculture" while "formal commercial seed trade is hundreds of years old" with a least one recorded instance as early as 1296 in the England and Scotland (Tripp 2001, 36).
By the middle of sixteenth century markets and shops in London were supplied with a range of vegetables and pulse seeds by growers who specialized in seed production. A pamphlet from a seedman in 1732 describes seed imported from Italy, Turkey, Egypt, France, Holland and Brazil (Tripp 2001 36).
In the post Civil War period, the US Department of Agriculture and land grant agricultural institutions were providing new varieties of many important crops while state extension services were encouraging the formation of agricultural associations. Private and public research using the emerging knowledge of biological replication and evolution were producing improved varieties. Before then, the US government had gone overseas to seek varieties of wheat that would grow in the new territories which were being settled. By the 1890s, the US government was sending out millions of packages containing packets of several different seeds each year. The era of commercial seed companies came to the forefront with the development of hybrid maize (Tripp 2001, 36-37).
Going into the market to buy inputs generally but not always means going into the market to sell some output. It does not take a great deal of time in the field to realize that there are not many farmers who fit the activist's definition of a "traditional farmer." One finds farmers in Africa who wish to plant a better, higher yielding variety but are uncertain whether the credit or fertilizer or pesticides will be available to them in time. Even without the additional inputs, the farmers recognize that the improved seed would give them a better crop, but not enough better to warrant the expenditure for the seeds. To the extent that the oft-described traditional farmers exist and are committed to saving their seed, they would clearly not be the prime target to sell genetically modified seeds.
As this is being written, changes are underway that are rapidly diminishing the numbers that fit the romantic category of traditional farmers. In India and China, an increasing percentage of their rice output is the result of a new complex and sophisticated form of hybridization, while farmers in the Punjab in India who have been growing high yielding varieties of wheat are now growing even higher yielding hybrid varieties; wheat farmers in China are expected to follow with new hybrids produced by their government. And may we add that there is greater genetic diversity in the wheat planted in the Punjab today than was the case a half century ago prior to the Green Revolution.
Hybrid maize has become an increasingly important crop, with maize production expected to exceed that of other grains sometime in the next twenty years. Of the roughly 200 million maize farmers in the world, circa 98% are in the developing world. In many developing countries, hybrid maize has become "the predominant seed type ... for example 84% of the 105 million Chinese maize farmers buy hybrid seed, and 81% of all maize seed used in Eastern and Southern Africa is hybrid" (James 2003).
Some of the farmers who most closely fit the idealized concept of "traditional" are engaged in agricultural practices that are anything but environmentally benign. The author's experience with upland rice farmers in a Southeast Asian country is indicative of some of the complex problems facing "traditional" farmers and those seeking to encourage more environmentally sustainable practices. Throughout Asia, farmers are planting upland rice on cleared hillsides that are subject to rapid erosion and with yields that have changed little over the last forty years, while those of their lowland neighbors in paddy farming have seen their annual output at least triple. Those with whom the author has been involved were gaining a very meager subsistence from their plot, which they supplemented with two to three days labor in the local village or nearby town. Most if not all were aware that their farm was rapidly eroding, with their very modest yields declining as their farm would eventually be totally denuded. Their response was simple and logical - the farm fed their family and their off-farm employment provided for school fees for their children and other necessities. By the time their land was no longer arable, their children would be grown and employed elsewhere, they could then get by on the income from the occasional paid labor. (Over half the farmers in Java obtain more than half their real income off-farm. This is increasingly the case in the United States also.) When an aid development worker proposed substituting a bush or tree crop such as papaya that would protect the soil, their negative response was equally simple and logical. Like the vast majority of the world's agriculturalists, the farmers lived in a village apart from the farm. Night raiders are unlikely to try to harvest a rice crop but they could clean the trees of their entire output. Anyone who travels in the Third World will see the fruit trees and kitchen gardens tightly packed around the village households for precisely this reason.
Clearly for the upland farmer, yield was a critical factor. It is low yields and low incomes and limited opportunities which force the poor to farm the hillside or cut down rainforest or otherwise bring land under cultivation - land that is marginal for agriculture. Low yields perpetuate themselves in a vicious cycle of low yields and continued poverty and environmental degradation of all kinds.
A variety of new agricultural technologies and techniques, both high and low tech, hold significant promise to make agriculture more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Some are more likely to be associated with agribusiness but they need not be. No-tillage agriculture in which farmers use a drill for planting or lightly disc the field, and then use herbicides to protect the crop, has several advantages. By maintaining ground cover, soil moisture is preserved and soil erosion is prevented, and greater biodiversity is preserved from year-to-year. The "organic" agriculture alternative to using herbicides is to deep-plough the field to turn the weeds under so they cannot regenerate and/or to hand weed with low paid migrant labor once the crop is growing (Lee 2003, Henshaw 2003, Fulmer 2003 and Roane 2002). Added to the widely practiced conservation-tillage or no-tillage agriculture, is what is now called precision agriculture, which combines the best in a variety of techniques. Using GPS (global positioning systems) and other technologies on their combine, farmers can measure the precise output from each and every area of the farm so that they can more precisely regulate the next year's planning in order not to use too much or too little of any inputs, including fertilizer and chemical pesticides. Contrary to some critics, no farmer, corporate or individual, wishes to destroy the land in which they have invested, nor do they wish to waste money using excess amounts of inputs of any kind. By means of a high tech form of IPM using computers with expert systems software and access to online data sources, and a variety of technologies for taking temperature, humidity and other measures including soil moisture, farmers can monitor their fields ("scouting") for insects etc. and plug in the data into their expert system program to learn whether they should apply a pesticide and more important, whether they should refrain from doing so. The result is greater output obtained with fewer chemical inputs and less disruption of the soil.
References
Brown, Michael F. Who Owns Native Culture?. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003.
Byerlee, Derek and Carl K. Eicher, editors. Africa's Emerging Maize Revolution. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1997.
Fulmer, Melinda. "Advocates for Farm Laborers Seek a Ban on Hand Weeding: Cal/OSHA Will Decide on a Request to Prohibit the Practice in the State's Commercial Agriculture, But Growers Say It Is Vital to Many Crops." Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2003.
Heisey, Paul W. and John P. Brennan. "An Analytical Model of Farmers' Demand for Replacement Seed." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 73 (November 1991):1044-1052.
Henshaw, Jake. "Committee Votes to Ban Hand Weeding." Tulare AdvanceRegister, September 11, 2003.
James, Clive. Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2002; Feature: Bt Maize. ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications) Briefs 29, November 4, 2003.
Lee, Mike. "Advocates Renew Fight to Limit Hand Weeding." The Sacramento Bee, April 30 2003.
Roane, Kit R. "Ripe for Abuse: Farmworkers Say Organic Growers Don't Always Treat Them as Well as They Do Your Food." US News World Report, April 22, 2002.
Smil, Vaclav. Feeding the World: A Challenge for the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000.
Smil, Vaclav. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.
Tripp, Robert. Seed Provision and Agricultural Development: The Institutions of Rural Change. London: Overseas Development Institute; Oxford [England]: James Currey; Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.
Turner, Dr. Roger G. 2003. Personal Communication, 12 December.
Vidal, John. 2003. Analysis "Chinks In The Organic Food Chain As Sales Reach A Record 1bn Annually." The Guardian (London), November 7.
Thomas R. DeGregori is a Professor of Economics, University of Houston and author of Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety and the Environment, Cato Institute, 2002 and the recently published book, Origins of the Organic Agriculture Debate, Blackwell Professional (formerly - Iowa State Press), 2003.
Phantom fears’ on GM hit Europe
April 20, 2004
Irish Examiner
Brian O’Mahony, Chief Business Correspondent
http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/business/Full_Story/did-sgRiFbvV6bXqssgDQQ5wn3uAIg.asp
Unilever boss Niall FitzGerald was cited as telling the IBEC conference on EU/US regulation that Europe had given into “phantom fears” about genetically modified (GM) food and bought into the Frankenstein food scare tactics of its opponents, resulting in a brain drain from Europe by disillusioned scientists.
In his address, the Unilever chairman and chief executive, said from a multinational perspective, effective regulation meant finding a balance between the cost and the benefit to society.
Clearly, he implied Europe failed to do that in the case of GM foods.
FitzGerald was further cited as warning Europe was in danger of being left behind if it failed to adopt the more pragmatic US approach and that GM food was the most obvious and controversial example where it has caused an incredible furore.
Biotech research helps create knowledge-based economy
April 20, 2004
CBI News
http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=4188
Ag and food science jobs pay $52,310 — more than 1.5 times the U.S. average.
Plant biotechnology is helping to create a vibrant knowledge-based economy throughout the United States, according to a study by a University of Minnesota professor.
"The vast stock of plant breeding and genomic research and development knowledge that led to the biotech revolution will generate billions of dollars in additional economic benefits for farmers and others in the agrifood value chain and within public and private research communities," said C. Ford Runge, director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy and Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Applied Economics and Law.
The study, "The Economic Status and Performance of Plant Biotechnology in 2003: Adoption, Research and Development in the United States," provides a detailed view of biotechnology's value at the farm level and beyond the farm gate, where the crops — and the research and development that creates them — generate additional jobs, income and investment in the agrifood chain and public and private research community. The study was supported by the Council for Biotechnology Information.
"It's clear why farmers have been adopting these crops: managerial efficiencies and increased profits per acre," said Runge.
Since their introduction in 1996:
Bt corn plantings have increased from 4 percent of total U.S. corn acres to 40 percent in 2003. Biotech cotton plantings have increased from 17 percent of U.S. cotton acres to 73 percent in 2003. Biotech soybean plantings have increased from 9 percent of U.S. soybean acres to 81 percent in 2003.
"The most compelling evidence for me as an economist of the value of biotech crops is the preference of farmers to plant these crops year after year after year," said Runge.
Four commercial biotech crops — corn, soybeans, cotton and canola — represented $20 billion in value in the United States in 2002, half of the total $40 billion value of the four crops.
The U.S. Corn Belt and cotton-growing regions gained the most economic value from planting biotech crops in 2002, led by Iowa ($3.8 billion), Illinois ($2.5 billion), Minnesota ($2.2 billion), Nebraska ($1.8 billion), Indiana ($1.3 billion) and South Dakota ($1 billion). Following these major corn and soybean growing states, Missouri was next with $1 billion, followed by North Dakota ($689 million), Ohio ($619 million) and cotton-producing states Arkansas ($670 million) and Mississippi ($528 million).
But the economic effects of plant biotechnology are being felt far beyond the farm.
"New plant biotech firms and research facilities are being created throughout the United States," said Runge. "The number of agricultural and food scientists are increasing as workers are attracted to the biotech sector's above-average wages, and a large number of individual states are reaping the benefits of this investment and job-related activity. While 41 of 50 states had some type of biotech initiative by 2001, those that have aggressively adopted and invested in biotechnology are reaping the greatest rewards."
Corn Belt states with higher adoption levels of biotech crops — South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and Iowa — have a greater proportion of ag and food science jobs than those with lower levels of adoption. For example, Iowa, one of the top five states in crop biotech adoption, has 50 ag and food science jobs per 100,000 jobs, more than lower adoption states. The average annual salary for these jobs in 2001 was $52,310 — more than one and a half times the U.S. average of $34,020.
In Wisconsin, where 56 of the 200 bioscience companies are dedicated to agriculture, the study indicated there are 21,000 workers who account for $5 billion of the Badger state's economy.
"This sector now represents enormous value — and extends to the national economy," said Runge, adding that even more densely populated states such as Connecticut, Maryland and Rhode Island are creating biotech jobs. "The jobs that are being created are knowledge-based, high-paying and highly specialized."
In the past two years, field tests have been conducted on 100 new biotech crop traits by 40 universities and 35 private sector companies — from a new variety of corn with an improved nutritional profile for use as an animal feed to a type of wheat that can better withstand droughts. Runge said continued investment in research and development — along with more public education about the benefits of biotechnology — is key to achieving further gains from plant biotechnology.
"As consumer confidence grows, it will feed the demand for new biotech varieties, increase the advantages of those willing and able to supply them, and indirectly establish a base of support for continued public investments in plant biotech," he said. "That translates directly into high social rates of return in the form of educational and job opportunities."
New ARS facility dedicated in Colorado
April 20, 2004
ARS News Service
FORT COLLINS, Colo.--The Agricultural Research Service dedicated a new research and administrative building today on the grounds of Colorado State University's (CSU) Natural Resources Research Center. The new facility is home to three ARS research laboratories: the Soil-Plant-Nutrient Research Unit, the Water Management Research Unit and the Great Plains Systems Research Unit. ARS is the chief scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "This building will allow ARS scientists to work in state-of-the-art laboratories on campus with their CSU collaborators," said ARS Acting Administrator Edward B. Knipling.
Some 120 ARS employees will work in the new 100,000-square-foot building. The employees previously worked in separate buildings throughout Fort Collins. In addition to the research staff, the new building houses employees of ARS' Northern Plains Area Office and the agency's new National Software Support Center. The building is one of four constructed by the General Services Administration on the CSU campus for use by USDA and U.S. Department of Interior agencies that deal with natural resources issues. Scientists in ARS' Soil-Plant-Nutrient Research Unit study ways to improve efficient use of plant nutrients in irrigation systems. They investigate how agricultural management practices affect nutrient cycling and plant nutrient uptake by crops, and they study agricultural systems to improve soil, water and air quality and protect the environment by lowering greenhouse gas emissions. At the Water Management Unit, scientists study precision agriculture--the technique of farming specific areas of a field based on soil and water characteristics and weather. Farmers who use precision agriculture are likely to save money by the more timely and reduced application of both water and chemicals, resulting in improved water conservation, water quality protection and weed control. Scientists in the Great Plains Systems Research Unit have developed several computer models to help farmers and others make decisions about farming practices. Agricultural producers and researchers can enter information about their farm, and the model will estimate possible outcomes on a wide range of topics. For example, the system will recommend how much fertilizer should be used to obtain optimal yields, or whether tillage or no-tillage systems would be best for that farm. Other ARS labs located in Fort Collins, but not part of the new complex, include the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, the Sugarbeet Research Unit, and several researchers affiliated with ARS' Rangeland Resources Research Unit at Cheyenne, Wyo.
Birth weights higher after pesticide ban
April 16, 2004
P A N U P S
Pesticide Action Network Updates Service
A recent study in New York City reports a significant increase in infant birth weights after two commonly used insecticides were banned for home use. Chlorpyrifos, a pesticide manufactured by Dow Chemical, and diazinon, which is produced by Syngenta, were widely used against cockroaches and other household pests until most of these uses were banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) in 2001 and 2002.
The current study, published in the April issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at 314 mother-infant pairs and is part of an ongoing project by Colombia University evaluating the effects of indoor air pollutants on minority mothers and their newborns in New York City. Study authors had reported earlier that pesticide residues were detected in virtually all low-income pregnant mothers studied, noting a strong correlation between dilapidated housing and pesticide exposures. In a previous study, the project also reported associations between levels of chlorpyrifos in umbilical cord plasma and low birth weight.
This study, which compares infants born before and after the insecticides were banned for household use, demonstrated that, on average, babies born before the ban weighed 6.6 ounces less than infants born after the ban - a difference comparable to the effects of smoking on infant birth weight.
Robin M. Whyatt of Colombia Mailman School of Public Health, principal author of the study remarked, "We were surprised to see such a significant association between exposure to the pesticides and birth weight. There is no question that this is an instance where regulation worked, the EPA imposed a ban, and there was an immediate benefit."
All retail sales and indoor use of chlorpyrifos and diazinon ended in December 2001, and December 2002 respectively. U.S. EPA has estimated prior to the ban that approximately 75% of U.S. diazinon and 50% of U.S. chlorpyrifos was used for residential pest control. The ban did not affect use of the insecticides on food crops, however. An estimated 10 million pounds of chlorpyrifos continue to be used in agricultural settings, putting farmworkers, their families and surrounding communities at the greatest risk of continued exposure. Consumers are also at risk of exposure from residues in food and water.
The Columbia study combined interviews on pesticide exposure and use, data from personal air monitors worn during pregnancy, and analysis of umbilical cord plasma and infant blood. Levels of the banned insecticides were substantially lower among infants born after January 2001, after the chlorpyrifos ban was in place, while habits of using other pesticides did not appear to change over the same period.
The study found combined exposures to diazinon and chlorpyrifos were common among the mothers in the study before the ban, with both insecticides detected simultaneously in 100% of the maternal personal air samples and in over a third of cord blood samples. The study also reported a significant correlation between the two insecticides in personal air and cord blood. Higher exposures (exposure levels in the highest 25%) to the two pesticides combined was most closely linked with lower infant birth weights. Prior to the bans, 34% of infants had exposure levels of combined chlorpyrifos and diazinon; after chlorpyrifos was banned in January 2001, only one infant had high combined exposure levels.
These study findings point to an immediate, positive health effect for infants when use of chlorpyrifos and diazinon are curtailed. They also present proof that pesticide exposures that U.S. EPA once determined to present "acceptable risks" are, in fact, linked with unacceptable damage. U.S. EPA must both strengthen its assessment of health risks of pesticide exposure during pregnancy, and act immediately to ban agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos, to protect agricultural workers, their children, and consumer health.
Prenatal Insecticide Exposures, Birth Weight and Length Among an Urban Minority Cohort, Environmental Health Perspectives, April, 2004, (online March 22, 2004) http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2004/6641/abstract.html; Birth Weights Up After EPA Pesticide Ban, Study Finds, Washington Post, March 25, 2004.
Contact: PANNA
Specialist: World should say yes to no-till farming
April 20, 2004
Ag Answers
http://www.aganswers.net
Increase no-till farming practices across the planet or face serious climate, soil quality and food production problems in the next 20 to 50 years. That warning from scientists appeared in the journal Science this week.
No-till farming helps soil retain carbon. Healthy topsoil contains carbon-enriched humus -- decaying organic matter that provides nutrients to plants. Soils low in humus can't maintain the carbon-dependent nutrients essential to healthy crop production, resulting in the need to use more fertilizers.
A lack of carbon in soil may promote erosion, as topsoil and fertilizers are often washed or blown away from farm fields and into waterways, said Rattan Lal, the lead author for the Science article and the director of the carbon management and sequestration center at Ohio State University.
In no-till agriculture, farmers plant seeds without using a plow to turn the soil. Soil loses most of its carbon content during plowing, which releases carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere. Increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have been associated with global climate change.
Traditional plowing, or tilling, turns over the top layer of soil. Farmers use it for, among other reasons, to get rid of weeds, make it easier to use fertilizers and pesticides and to plant crops. Tilling also enriches the soil as it hastens the decomposition of crop residue, weeds and other organic matter.
Still, the benefits of switching to no-till farming practices outweigh those of traditional planting, Lal said.
Since the mechanization of agriculture began a few hundred years ago, scientists estimate that some 78 billion metric tons -- more than 171 trillion pounds -- of carbon once trapped in the soil have been lost to the atmosphere in the form of CO2.
Lal and his colleagues estimate that no-till farming is practiced on only 5 percent of all the world's cultivated cropland. Farmers in the United States use no-till methods on 37 percent of the nation's cropland, which results in saving an estimated 60 million metric tons of soil CO2 annually.
"If every farmer who grows crops in the United States would use no-till and adopt management practices such as crop rotation and planting cover crops, we could sequester about 300 million tons of soil carbon each year," Lal said.
"Each year, 6 billion tons of carbon is released into the planet's atmosphere as fossil fuels are burned, and plants can absorb 20 times that amount in that period of time. The problem is that as organisms decompose and plants breathe, CO2 returns to the atmosphere. None of it accumulates in the soil."
Lal conceded that full-scale no-till farming practices are a short-term fix, but it's one that will give researchers enough time to find alternatives to fossil fuels.
"There needs to be a global effort to adopt no-till farming practices soon. Governments need to mandate these practices or to provide financial incentives to farmers to adopt them," said Lal, adding that no-till methods may reduce a farmer's annual crop yield by 5 to 10 percent, at least for the first few years.
It's also tough to ask farmers who lack the necessary financial resources to switch to no-till methods, especially in African and Asian countries where no-till levels are the lowest, Lal said.
"No-till isn't readily practiced in most of these areas due to the lack of available financial resources and government support," he said. "Farmers often lack the seeding equipment necessary to drill through crop residue. And many farmers use leftover residue from the previous year's crops for fuel or animal fodder. So the cultivated soil gets compacted or eroded by water and wind."
Topsoil also is a lucrative commodity -- an acre of it can bring in $1,300 for a farmer in India, where the first few feet of soil are often removed for brick making.
"No-till farming isn't a substitute for finding alternatives to fossil fuels," Lal said. "No-till is definitely a short-term fix, but it may buy us up to 50 years to find alternatives to fossil fuels. If we don't heed this warning, our planet may change drastically. There's no other choice."
[ISO-8859-1] Plant Protection Policy Directives
April 20, 2004
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Appendix 1 of Directive D-03-08 "Phytosanitary Requirements to prevent the introduction into and spread within Canada of the Emerald Ash Borer, Agrilus planipennis (Fairmaire), into Canada" has been revised and is available on the web at http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/plaveg/protect/dir/directe.shtml.
Arabidopsis thaliana has the enzymatic machinery for replicating representative viroid species of the family Pospiviroidae
April 19, 2004
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0401090101
José-Antonio Daròs and Ricardo Flores *
Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (UPV-CSIC), Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Avenida de los Naranjos s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Communicated by Theodor O. Diener, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, College Park, MD, February 16, 2004 (received for review September 15, 2003)
Viroids, subviral noncoding RNAs, replicate, move, and incite diseases in plants. Viroids replicate through a rolling-circle mechanism in which oligomeric RNAs of one or both polarities are cleaved and ligated into the circular monomers. Attempts to transmit viroids to Arabidopsis have failed for unknown reasons. To tackle this question, Arabidopsis was transformed with cDNAs expressing dimeric (+) transcripts of representative species of the families Pospiviroidae and Avsunviroidae, which replicate in the nucleus and the chloroplast, respectively. Correct processing to the circular (+) monomers was always observed, demonstrating that Arabidopsis has the appropriate RNase and RNA ligase. Northern blot hybridization also revealed the multimeric (-) RNAs of Citrus exocortis viroid and Hop stunt viroid (HSVd) of the family Pospiviroidae, but not of Avocado sunblotch viroid of the family Avsunviroidae, showing that the first RNA-RNA transcription of the rolling-circle mechanism occurs in Arabidopsis for the two nuclear viroids and that their multimeric (-) RNAs remain unprocessed as in typical hosts. Moreover, transgenic Arabidopsis expressing HSVd dimeric (-) transcripts accumulated the circular (+) monomers, although at low levels, together with the unprocessed primary transcript that served as the template for the second RNA-RNA transcription. Agroinoculation of Arabidopsis with the dimeric (+) Citrus exocortis viroid, HSVd, and Coleus blumei viroid 1 cDNAs showed that these viroids could not move to distal plant parts, in contrast with the situation observed in their experimental hosts. Therefore, deficiencies in movement or low replication appear to be the factors limiting infectivity of some viroids in Arabidopsis.
Nitrogen-bonded aromatics in soil organic matter and their implications for a yield decline in intensive rice cropping
April 19, 2004
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0401349101
K. Schmidt-Rohr *, J. -D. Mao *, and D. C. Olk
*Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011; and U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Services, National Soil Tilth Laboratory, 2150 Pammel Drive, Ames, IA 50011
Communicated by John M. Bremner, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, February 26, 2004 (received for review September 22, 2003)
Previous research has shown that long-term intensive cropping of irrigated lowland rice has led to significant grain-yield declines in field trials. The yield decline was attributed to decreased availability of soil nitrogen, which is held mostly in the soil organic matter. By advanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy, we have detected significant amounts of amide nitrogen directly bonded to aromatic rings in a humic acid fraction extracted from a continually submerged, triple-cropped rice soil. Because nitrogen bonded to aromatics is not readily plant-available, this observation can explain the yield decline. Quantitative 13C NMR combined with advanced spectral editing showed that this humic acid is rich in lignin derivatives (>45% of all carbon), whereas the corresponding humic acid fraction extracted from an aerobic, single-cropped rice soil contains less lignin and less nitrogen bonded to aromatics.
Arabidopsis EIN3-binding F-box 1 and 2 form ubiquitin-protein ligases that repress ethylene action and promote growth by directing EIN3 degradation
April 16, 2004
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0401698101
Jennifer M. Gagne *, Jan Smalle *, Derek J. Gingerich *, Joseph M. Walker *, Sang-Dong Yoo , Shuichi Yanagisawa , and Richard D. Vierstra *¶
*Department of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706-1574; Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114; and Research Institute for Bioresources, Okayama University, Chuo 2-30-1, Kurashiki 710-0046, Japan
Communicated by Eldon H. Newcomb, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, March 10, 2004 (received for review December 17, 2003)
Ubiquitination of various intracellular proteins by ubiquitin-protein ligases (or E3s) plays an essential role in eukaryotic cell regulation primarily through its ability to selectively target proteins for degradation by the 26S proteasome. Skp1, Cullin, F-box (SCF) complexes are one influential E3 class that use F-box proteins to deliver targets to a core ligase activity provided by the Skp1, Cullin, and Rbx1 subunits. Almost 700 F-box proteins can be found in Arabidopsis, indicating that SCF E3s likely play a pervasive role in plant physiology and development. Here, we describe the reverse genetic analysis of two F-box proteins, EBF1 and -2, that work coordinately in SCF complexes to repress ethylene action. Mutations in either gene cause hypersensitivity to exogenous ethylene and its precursor 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid. EBF1 and -2 interact directly with ethylene insensitive 3 (EIN3), a transcriptional regulator important for ethylene signaling. Levels of EIN3 are increased in mutants affecting either EBF1 or -2, suggesting that the corresponding SCF complexes work together in EIN3 breakdown. Surprisingly, double ebf1 ebf2 mutants display a substantial arrest of seedling growth and have elevated EIN3 levels, even in the absence of exogenous ethylene. Collectively, our results show that the SCFEBF1/EBF2-dependent ubiquitination and subsequent removal of EIN3 is critical not only for proper ethylene signaling but also for growth in plants.
¶To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Richard D. Vierstra , E-mail: vierstra@...
Engineering tropane biosynthetic pathway in Hyoscyamus niger hairy root cultures
April 14, 2004
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0401391101
Lei Zhang *, Ruxian Ding , Yourong Chai , Mercedes Bonfill ¶, Elisabet Moyano ||, Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey **, Tiefeng Xu , Yan Pi *, Zinan Wang *, Hanming Zhang , Guoyin Kai , Zhihua Liao *, Xiaofen Sun *, and Kexuan Tang *
*State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Morgan-Tan International Center for Life Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China; School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China; ¶Unidad de Fisiología Vegetal, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Barcelona, Diagonal 643, E-08028 Barcelona, Spain; ||Departament de Ciències Experimentals i de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Avenida Dr. Aiguader 80, E-08003 Barcelona, Spain; **VTT Biotechnology, P.O. Box 1500, FIN-02044 VTT (Espoo), Finland; School of Agronomy and Life Sciences, Southwest Agricultural University, Chongqing 400716, China; and Plant Biotechnology Research Center, School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030, China
Communicated by Jiazhen Tan, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, March 2, 2004 (received for review July 10, 2003)
Scopolamine is a pharmaceutically important tropane alkaloid extensively used as an anticholinergic agent. Here, we report the simultaneous introduction and overexpression of genes encoding the rate-limiting upstream enzyme putrescine N-methyltransferase (PMT) and the downstream enzyme hyoscyamine 6 -hydroxylase (H6H) of scopolamine biosynthesis in transgenic henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) hairy root cultures. Transgenic hairy root lines expressing both pmt and h6h produced significantly higher (P 0.05) levels of scopolamine compared with the wild-type and transgenic lines harboring a single gene (pmt or h6h). The best line (T3) produced 411 mg/liter scopolamine, which was over nine times more than that in the wild type (43 mg/liter) and more than twice the amount in the highest scopolamine-producing h6h single-gene transgenic line H11 (184 mg/liter). To our knowledge, this is the highest scopolamine content achieved through genetic engineering of a plant. We conclude that transgenic plants harboring both pmt and h6h possessed an increased flux in the tropane alkaloid biosynthetic pathway that enhanced scopolamine yield, which was more efficient than plants harboring only one of the two genes. It seems that the pulling force of the downstream enzyme (the faucet enzyme) H6H plays a more important role in stimulating scopolamine accumulation in H. niger whereas the functioning of the upstream enzyme PMT is increased proportionally. This study provides an effective approach for large-scale commercial production of scopolamine by using hairy root culture systems as bioreactors.
To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Kexuan Tang , E-mail: kxtang@...
The Arabidopsis repressor of light signaling, COP1, is regulated by nuclear exclusion: Mutational analysis by bioluminescence resonance energy transfer
April 14, 2004
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0307964101
Chitra Subramanian *, Byung-Hoon Kim *, Nicholas N. Lyssenko *, Xiaodong Xu , Carl Hirschie Johnson , and Albrecht G. von Arnim *
*Department of Botany, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-1100; and Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Box 1634B, Nashville, TN 37235-1634
Edited by J. Woodland Hastings, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved March 12, 2004 (received for review December 2, 2003)
Bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) between Renilla luciferase and yellow fluorescent protein has been adapted to serve as a real-time reporter on protein-protein interactions in live plant cells by using the Arabidopsis Constitutive photomorphogenesis 1 (COP1) protein as a model system. COP1 is a repressor of light signal transduction that functions as part of a nuclear E3 ubiquitin ligase. COP1 possesses a leucine-rich nuclear-exclusion signal that resides in a domain implicated in COP1 dimerization. BRET was applied in conjunction with site-directed mutagenesis to explore the respective contributions of the nuclear-exclusion and dimerization motifs to the regulation of COP1 activity in vivo. One specific mutant protein, COP1L105A, showed increased nuclear accumulation but retained the ability to dimerize, as monitored by BRET, whereas other mutations inhibited both nuclear exclusion and COP1 dimerization. Mutant rescue and overexpression experiments indicated that nuclear exclusion of COP1 protein is a rate-limiting step in light signal transduction.
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