“Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie….” After the initial reports in 1983 of successful genetic transformation of tobacco, petunia and sunflower plants using Agrobacterium to mediate gene transfer, this technique was tried on many other crop plants. By 1989, a colleague at the time summarized a “Plant Gene Transfer” meeting he’d attended…
How To Screw Organic Farmers In a recent issue of our local paper, there was a tragic story about how several organic farmers in the region had unknowingly purchased manure which turned out to be contaminated with a powerful herbicide. Consequently, they lost most of their crops. And they certainly…
Can Chemically Inducing Dormancy Help Plants Cope With Stress? This was a very bad year for wheat in Russia because of an extraordinarily hot and dry summer. And many climatologists believe this may be only a glimpse of the not-too-distant future in many parts of the world. If so, then…
Plant Cut-Backs “Pruning is one of the most important cultural practices for maintaining woody plants, including ornamental trees and shrubs, fruits and nuts. It involves both art and science: art in making the pruning cuts properly, and science in knowing how and when to prune for maximum benefits.” (from ref.…
The End of Winter? We experienced a relatively warm January here in western Washington (record-setting, in fact). Some daffodils are already coming up and the witch hazels are blooming. But most of the trees haven’t started to leaf out because they haven’t yet emerged from winter dormancy. Most woody perennial…
Plants Can’t Come In From The Cold Imagine for a moment that you had to stand outside your house or apartment, without moving, all winter long…and that you were naked. How long do you think you could last? Not long, especially if the temperature went below freezing. And certainly not…
A Truly Ancient Grain? The wheat variety called Kamut® has a fascinating history. According to “Kamut®: Ancient Grain, New Cereal”, one of the original growers, and one of the trademark holders, of Kamut®, Robert M. Quinn recounts the story of this unusual wheat variety. “Following WWII, a US airman claimed…
Fried Green Tomatoes About this time of year in the North Temperate Zone people may be getting very tired of fried green tomatoes and green tomato pie. As a plant physiologist, I was often asked how to ripen green tomatoes. (Rather than go into this here, I’ll refer you to…
The Biology of Moonlight? The moon may have effects on animal behavior (see here for example), but does it affect plants? Last time I introduced the scientific literature on the subject by referring to a 1946 paper by Beeson (see ref. 1 below) published in the journal Nature. In this…
Walking on the Moon (Updated) On July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to walk on the moon. Since the 50th anniversary of this first moon landing will occur in 2019 (get your commemorative T-Shirt here), I think it would be…