HOLY SH*T. THEY FOUND NITROGEN-FIXING CORN BRED BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN MEXICO. @botanyshitposts
“The study found the Sierra Mixe corn obtains 28 to 82 percent of its nitrogen from the atmosphere. To do this, the corn grows a series of aerial roots. Unlike conventional corn, which has one or two groups of aerial roots near its base, the nitrogen-fixing corn develops eight to ten thick aerial roots that never touch the ground.
During certain times of the year, these roots secrete a gel-like substance, or mucilage. The mucilage provides the low-oxygen and sugar-rich environment required to attract bacteria that can transform nitrogen from the air into a form the corn can use.
“Our research has demonstrated that the mucilage found in this Sierra Mixe corn forms a key component of its nitrogen fixation,“ said co-author Jean-Michel Ané, professor of agronomy and bacteriology in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at UW–Madison. “We have shown this through growth of the plant both in Mexico and Wisconsin.”
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Researchers are a long way from developing a similar nitrogen-fixing trait for commercial corn, but this is a first step to guide further research on that application. The discovery could lead to a reduction of fertilizer use for corn, one of the world’s major cereal crops. It takes 1 to 2 percent of the total global energy supply to produce fertilizer. The energy-intensive process is also responsible for 1 to 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“
I’ve written about this before, this is one of those ‘saving the planet’ levels of discovery. No joke.
if you’ve been here any length of time you will recall that I’m usually the killjoy over here going “there are no silver bullets.” And this has a long way to go before it’s actually of use to farmers, but IF that happens (and that’s still a BIG IF) this would be a legit Big Fucking Deal.
Two things make me hopeful that this will not just disappear into corporate-owned varieties: one, this research was largely done through two land grant universities. Over decades. This is what land grant universities are FOR: their stated purpose is to do useful shit that’s too unprofitable for corporate R&D to care about. They are exactly the people you want developing awesome new ag tech. Mars, Inc. is involved with this too, and I trust them…not at all, but they’re not Monsanto, so it could be worse.
The other thing is this, from the linked article:
The municipal authority and community in the isolated village in the
Sierra Mixe region were an integral part of this research project.
Biological materials were accessed and utilized under an Access and
Benefit Sharing (ABS) Agreement with the community and with permission
from the Mexican government. An internationally recognized certificate
of compliance under the Nagoya Protocol has been issued for such
activities.
The ABS Agreement was structured under the terms of the Nagoya
Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, which is designed to ensure the
equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic
resources and contributing to the conservation and sustainable use of
biodiversity.
I don’t know the details of the Nagoya Protocol. But at the very least, this isn’t outright theft of indigenous technology for corporate profit. Someone has at least thought through an equitable way for the community that developed this trait over centuries of growing maize to benefit from its use.
Finally: this is (one reason) why it’s important to preserve local crop varieties (also called landraces). Most industrialized agriculture is incredibly homogeneous genetically. It’s from the landraces that people developed slowly for specific conditions that we can find new traits–this is an extreme example, but it’s common to find landraces that are resistant to certain pests and diseases.
Oh and one more thing: Zea mays aka maize aka corn aka “indigenous Mesoamericans were better crop breeders than anyone alive today, apparently” is the WEIRDEST FUCKING PLANT, WHAT THE FUCK.
“Animal blood comes in a rainbow of hues because of the varying chemistry of the molecules it uses to carry oxygen. Humans use hemoglobin, whose iron content imparts a crimson color to our red blood cells. Octopuses, lobsters, and horseshoe crabs use hemocyanin, which has copper instead of iron, and is blue instead of red—that’s why these creatures bleed blue. Other related molecules are responsible for the violet blood of some marine worms, and the green blood of leeches. But the green-blooded lizards use good old hemoglobin. Their red blood cells are, well, red. Their green has a stranger origin: Biliverdin.
They should be dead. Biliverdin can damage DNA, kill cells, and destroy neurons. And yet, the lizards have the highest levels of biliverdin ever seen in an animal. Their blood contains up to 20 times more of it than the highest concentration ever recorded in a human—an amount that proved to be fatal. And yet, not only are the lizards still alive, they’re not even jaundiced. How do they tolerate the chemical? Why did they evolve such high levels of biliverdin in the first place? And why, as Austin’s colleague Zachary Rodriguez has just discovered, did they do so on several occasions?”
A Florida teenager who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, issued a rousing call to action at a rally against gun violence.
Emma Gonzalez declared that the shooting at her school should be “the last mass shooting.”
And she responded directly to Trump’s tweet, which blamed students at the school for not reporting on the shooter’s behavior before the event.
“We did,” Gonzalez said, “time and time again, since he was in middle school.”
“We need to pay attention to the fact that this isn’t just a mental health issue,” she continued. “He wouldn’t have harmed that many students with a knife.”
“How about we stop blaming the victims for something that was the shooter’s fault?” she demanded, and called out those who do deserve to shoulder that blame.
“[The people] who let him buy the guns in the first place. Those at the gun shows. The people who encouraged him to buy accessories for his guns to make them fully automatic. The people who didn’t take them away from him when they knew that he expressed homicidal tendencies. And I am not talking about the FBI. I am talking about the people that he lived with, I’m talking about the neighbors who saw him outside holding guns.”
And Gonzalez again did not let Trump’s responsibility go unremarked upon
“If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy, and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us that nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.”
Gonzalez then called attention to the $30 million spent by the NRA in support of Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and how that translates onto each life lost to gun violence.
“That comes out to being $5800. Is that how much these people are worth to you, Trump?” She asked.
“To every politician who has taken donations from the NRA: Shame on you!”
The crowd erupted into a loud chant, echoing her cry: “Shame on you!”
Emma Gonzalez and her Florida community are not allowing Trump, the Republican Party, or the NRA to intimidate them into silence. They are speaking up to defend their families, and shaming those who enable this epidemic of violence.
The video of the full speech by Emma Gonzalez, via CNN’s YouTube:
Experimenting with the edible day lily, hemerocallis fulva, which grows wildin most of the US. You can eat the flowers, flower buds, young stalks and tubers.
Wow another old one in drafts, but one I think I still want to post it. Has anyone on the plantblr scene harvested daylilies for food before? H. fulva and some of its very close kin/hybrids I know are supposedly edible.
Kihaku-Gato's Garden Blog (tumblr import) 