Someone Grafted Your Groceries

These days, if we hear about two different plants being combined, the first thing we think of is modern biotechnology. But the low-technology process of grafting remains an extremely important form of genetic engineering in agriculture.

Grafting still holds an important place even in an age of high-tech agriculture. Many kinds of plants are grown not from seeds but from pieces cut from existing plants. Farmers cut branches or buds, young growths, from one plant and place them on a related kind of plant.

The branch or bud that is grafted is called a scion [pronounced SY-uhn]. The plant that accepts the graft is called the root stock.

Over time, the parts from the two plants grow together. The grafted plant begins to produce the leaves and fruit of the scion, not the root stock.

A graft can be cut in several ways. A cleft graft, for example, requires a scion with several buds on it. The bottom of the scion is cut in the shape of the letter V. A place is cut in the root stock to accept the scion.

The scion is then securely placed into the cut on the root stock. Material called a growth medium is put on the joint to keep it wet and help the growth.

Grafting can join scions with desirable qualities to root stock that is strong and resists disease and insects. Smaller trees can be grafted with older scions.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency says producing stronger plants by grafting can reduce the need to use pesticides.

Agriculture could not exist as we know it without grafting. Many fruits and nuts have been improved through this method. Some common fruit trees such as sweet cherries and McIntosh apples have to be grafted.

Bing cherries, for example, are one of the most popular kinds of cherries. But a Bing cherry tree is not grown from seed. Branches that produce Bing cherries must be grafted onto root stock. All sweet cherries on the market are grown this way.

And then there are seedless fruits like navel oranges and seedless watermelons. Have you ever wondered how farmers grow them? Through grafting.

The grapefruit tree is another plant that depends on grafting to reproduce. Grapes, apples, pears and also flowers can be improved through grafting.

In an age of high-technology agriculture, grafting still holds an important place.

Source:
VOA News Service

Americans Face Higher Food Prices as More Corn is Used for Ethanol Production

The United States Department of Agriculture says high demand for ethanol fuel made from corn will mean higher meat prices. In its monthly crop report on March ninth, 2007, the department said feed costs are rising for cows, pigs and poultry birds. Corn, or maize, is their main feed.

Corn has been selling at more than three dollars a bushel in early 2007. In 2006, the average was two dollars.

The government says ethanol is using twenty percent of the American corn crop from last year. With this year's harvests, the amount is expected to reach twenty-five percent.

The National Chicken Council has objected to Congress about the situation. The council is a trade organization that represents the industry. It says the feed cost of the chicken industry alone has risen by forty percent.

In January, Tyson Foods, the world's biggest meat processor, reported its first profitable three-month period in a year. But the head of the Arkansas company warned that sharply higher corn prices have become a "major issue" for the food industry. Richard Bond says people will have to pay more for food because companies will be forced to pass along rising costs.

But Deputy Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner says demand for corn will probably get farmers to plant more corn. A University of Missouri Extension official says ethanol could bring the biggest change in American agriculture since farmers began planting soybeans.

Some economists have suggested that land from the Conservation Reserve Program should be used for additional corn production. But the Agriculture Department says only a limited area of land will be released for use over the next four years. The program supports the planting of things like native grasses or trees to reduce the loss of soil from croplands.

The department has appointed a committee to study the needs of biofuel producers. These are fuels like ethanol that are made from renewable resources.

On March ninth, the United States and Brazil signed a cooperation agreement on biofuels technology. The signing took place in Sao Paulo during the first stop on a trip by President Bush to Latin America. Seventy percent of the world's ethanol supply comes from the United States and Brazil. But while most American ethanol is made from corn, most Brazilian ethanol comes from sugar cane.

Source:
VOA News

Benefits of Mulching

Mulch is important to farmers. Mulch is a protective cover of material that is spread on top of soil. It is usually made out of organic material, like crop waste. Farmers may keep the remains of maize or other crops on top of the soil. This creates mulch on the soil surface. The plant remains help protect the soil against wind and water damage. This is called conservation tillage.

Mulching is one of the best things people can do for their plants. Mulch not only protects the soil against wind and water damage. It also helps keep the soil from getting dry, and reduces the need for watering plants. It also limits temperature changes in the soil. And it stops unwanted plants, or weeds, from growing.

Organic mulch improves the condition of soil. As the mulch breaks down, it provides material which keeps the soil from getting hard. This improves the growth of roots and increases the movement of water through the soil. It also improves the ability of the soil to hold water. Organic mulch contains nutrients for plants. It also provides a good environment for earthworms and other helpful organisms in the soil.

The best time to add mulch depends on your goal. Mulch provides a thick barrier between the soil and the air. This helps to reduce temperature changes in the soil. As a result, mulched soil will be cooler than other soil in the summer. Mulched areas usually warm up more slowly in the spring and cool down slowly in autumn. In winter, the mulched soil may not freeze as deeply as other soil.

Mulch used to help moderate the effects of winter weather can be added late in autumn. The best time is after the ground has frozen, but before the coldest weather arrives. Spreading mulch before the ground has frozen may attract small animals searching for a warm place to spend the winter. Delaying the spreading should prevent this problem. The animals will probably find another place to live.

The United States Department of Agriculture says it is easy to find organic mulch materials. Cut-up leaves and small pieces of tree bark can be used. Grass cuttings are also a good mulch for plants. Mulch from newspapers works well in controlling weeds.

Source:
VOA News

Global Warming Could Decrease Crop Yields

If there is any good to come from global warming, it is the notion that plants would thrive on the rising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the leading greenhouse gas that helps trap heat. Carbon dioxide is as vital to plant breathing as oxygen is to us. Biologists say that for most vegetation, the more carbon dioxide there is in the air, the more they grow.

At the same time, they point out that extra CO-2 also hurts plants. They say plant growth is slowed by higher temperatures and lower soil moisture caused by faster evaporation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on global warming, has concluded that these two trends balance each other, so global warming was not expected to hurt agriculture overall.

U.S. government and university experiments carried out in greenhouses have supported this view.

"What they do is put one kind of plant in two different greenhouses that are right next to each other and then they put higher CO-2 levels in one of the greenhouses and have regular atmospheric level of CO-2 in the other greenhouse," said Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, a pro-business group that opposes government efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

He says more carbon dioxide is good for farming.

"The results of these studies going back half a century or more are stunning because almost every single study show not only do all kinds of plants grow more quickly with higher levels of CO-2, but they are also much hardier," he said. "They are more resistant to things like drought."

But a new study shows differently when crops are grown outdoors. University of Illinois agriculture expert Stephen Long and colleagues report in the journal "Science" that the benefits of raised CO-2 levels in global warming do not balance the harmful effects.

"The two things were very roughly thought to counteract each other," he said. "However, the CO-2 fertilization until recently has been studied only in greenhouses and other enclosed environments. If you raise the CO-2 level under fully open conditions, do you see this large fertilization of crop yield? Roughly what we found was that under open air conditions, that increase appears only to be half of what was expected."

The experiments were carried out using five different crops around the world. All showed considerable growth reductions outdoors. Long says that in the tropics, carbon dioxide increases may not help the growth of crops like corn and sorghum at all.

The findings suggest that without changes in the way crops are planted, future yields will drop with increasing carbon dioxide levels.

"We also simulated that rise in our experiment," he said. "That reduces the yield of soybean by about 20 percent, which is a very large yield decrease, and this has not been taken account in future projections on food supply."

But Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute maintains that higher carbon dioxide concentrations benefit agriculture.

"There is a lot of satellite evidence that the Earth is in a period of rapid greening right now and that is probably due to higher CO-2 levels," he said.

Researchers on both sides of the debate agree that more studies are needed to understand the effects of climate change and greenhouse gases on crops.

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: Frank Ling
First published: June 30, 2006

Jojoba - An Unusual Oilseed Crop

Jojoba is a woody plant that grows in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It needs dry weather and cannot survive low temperatures.

The jojoba plant produces a high quality oil. In fact, more than half of the seed can be oil. This liquid wax does not spoil easily. And it keeps its chemical qualities at temperatures up to three hundred degrees Celsius.

Jojoba oil is mainly used in skin care and beauty products. Scientists say the oil is chemically similar to the oil produced by human skin.

But jojoba oil can also be used to control insects on crops. It was approved in the United States as a pesticide in nineteen ninety-six.

It can be sprayed on all crops to fight white flies. It is also used to control mildew on grapes and on non-food plants. Jojoba-based pesticides work mainly by forming a barrier between a plant leaf and pests.

The Environmental Protection Agency says jojoba oil is not a risk to non-target organisms. And it says it does not know of any harmful effects to humans even if the oil is eaten. But farmers should not release jojoba products into waterways. Oils are generally dangerous to water life.

Many industrial uses for jojoba oil are being studied. It can be used as a lubricant for machines or electronic parts. It has even been considered as a low-calorie food additive because the body cannot break down jojoba oil.

Large plantings of jojoba in the United States are said to date back to the late nineteen seventies. The export market started to grow in the middle of the nineties. By two thousand, the Agriculture Department found that about ninety percent of American jojoba oil was exported. France, Switzerland and Japan are major importers.

The International Jojoba Export Council has members in Mexico and the United States. It also includes companies and universities in Australia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Egypt and Israel.

A limited number of producers, and changing harvest conditions, mean that prices for jojoba oil can change sharply.

Source:
VOA News Service

Corn Breeding Methods

Since ancient times, farmers have chosen the best examples from each crop to provide seed for the next year. This method is called mass selection. Mass selection produces plants with similar genetic qualities over time.

A method called pure-line breeding is similar. But it is more systematic. In pure-line breeding, the best plants are chosen from a crop that has many different genetic qualities.

The seeds from these plants are grown. Then the best plants are chosen from the new crop. This process can go on for many years, until the seeds produce plants with measurable similarities and desirable qualities. Seed companies may use this method to produce seed for some crops.

But the pure-line method is not often used with widely traded crops. Today major crops like corn or wheat are developed as hybrids.

About one hundred years ago, a scientist in the United States, G.H. Shull, made important discoveries about corn hybrids.

He mated corn with itself. Corn does not normally fertilize itself in nature. If corn is inbred, the seeds will produce a plant that clearly shows the qualities of the parent. But this inbreeding does not produce a strong plant.

Shull found that if he mated two inbred corn plants, they would produce a strong line with the good qualities of the parent plants. This is called crossbreeding.

Researchers soon recognized that they could crossbreed four inbred lines of corn. This "double cross" results in stronger corn with the best qualities of the parent plants. This is the way most hybrid corn is developed.

Modern hybrid corn produces much more grain than its ancestors. But success can create its own problems. For example, there is very little genetic difference in the corn grown across the United States. Experts estimate that current hybrids use less than five percent of the genetic diversity that exists.

There is a project called Germplasm Enhancement of Maize, or GEM. It is a cooperative effort to increase the genetic diversity in corn. The project involves the Department of Agriculture, sixteen universities and twenty international companies.

Genetically Engineered Rice Varieties Cut Use of Pesticides

A study in China suggests that two kinds of genetically engineered rice can reduce the costs, and dangers, of using pesticides.

One kind of rice includes a gene found in the bacterium known as Bt. Bt lives in soil and on plants; it is a natural insecticide. It is poisonous to some kinds of insects. Bt maize is commonly planted in the United States. The other kind of rice was engineered to resist insects with a gene from the cowpea plant.

The two-year study involved tests of Bt rice in Hubei province and cowpea rice in Fujian. Scientists collected information from small farms already testing insect-resistant rice without technical aid. Some farmers are growing both insect-resistant and traditional rice.

The scientists found that the Bt rice produced six to nine percent more grain than other kinds of rice. The cowpea rice, based on fewer observations, did not appear to increase productivity.

Still, the findings show that resistance to insects improved for both kinds of rice. The study says farmers used eighty percent less insecticide than usual.

Science magazine published the findings. Jikun Huang led the study. He is director of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The study notes that no country has yet released a major food grain crop that has been genetically changed. Engineered crops are now used mostly for animal feed and products like cotton.

The Chinese farmers in the study made their own decisions about when to use insecticides. Those with traditional rice crops used chemicals almost four times per growing season on average. But farmers with the insect-resistant rice used insecticides an average of less than once per season.

Less insecticide meant fewer sick farmers. The study says the farmers growing insect-resistant rice did not report any health problems from the use of poisons.

China has not approved genetically engineered rice for market. But a report from Hubei last month said insect-resistant rice appears to have been sold illegally for the last two years. That report came from the environmental group Greenpeace, which oppose genetic engineering. China says it is investigating the Greenpeace report.

Some countries will not import genetically engineered foods. Not everyone is sure that such products are safe for people or the environment.

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: Mario Ritter
First published: May 9, 2005

No-Till Farming Gains Ground

Since ancient times, farmers in many cultures have prepared the land for growing crops. They used plows to turn the soil in their fields. This is called tilling. Now, a method called no-till farming is gaining popularity all over the world on big and small farms.

Plows cut into the soil and lift up the remains of last season’s crops and unwanted plants. The process brings air into the soil so dead plant material breaks down quickly to form natural fertilizer.

But plowing can cause severe damage to topsoil by removing the plants that protect the soil from being blown or washed away. Plowing also can reduce the amount of water in soil.

Over the last several years, farmers have sought ways to protect soil by avoiding unneeded tilling. This has been called conservation tillage, low-till farming or no-till farming. Soybeans, wheat, corn, and cotton are crops often farmed without tilling. But many other crops can be grown this way.

No-till farming is already used in many countries. Pioneer Hi-Bred International and the Conservation Technology Information Center did a study on no-till farming. The study said the United States leads the world in the number of hectares of no-till farming.

About twenty-six million hectares of land are not tilled in the United States. There are about ninety million no-till hectares around the world. In South America, no-till farming is growing quickly, especially in Brazil and Argentina.

The agriculture magazine, Farm Journal, says South American farmers have a good reason to use no-till farming. The magazine says there are fewer government programs supporting common tilling methods.

No-till farming is less costly and improves the soil over time. It saves money because farmers do not operate farm machines to plow soil. This saves fuel, time and labor.

No-till farmers in some climates use cover crops, like alfalfa. Cover crops protect the soil when crops are not being grown.

Farm Journal says that farmers using no-till methods must understand the risks. No-till farming can result in a smaller crop some years. But over time, crops will increase because soil quality improves.

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: Mario Ritter
First published: April 4, 2005

Health and Nutrition

The following posts cover topics related to health and nutritional benefits of fruits, vegetables, grains, and other plant products.

• Cherries Boast Anti-Inflammatory Benefits

• Discovering Medicinal Plants

• Fortified Sweet Potato Provides a Vitamin A Boost to Help Fight Malnutrition

• Legumes Provide Nutrition for People - and Soil

• New Muscadine Grape Offers Improved Flavor, Health Benefits

• Scientists Search for Healthy Uses for Tobacco

• US Botanic Garden Exhibits Medicinal Plants

Ethanol Fuel Opens New Markets for Corn

The American Midwest is known as the corn belt. Most of the nation’s maize is grown along that stretch of the country. The farmers who grow the corn have been very successful. So successful, they now face oversupply and low prices.

Most of the corn goes to feed animals. But some of it also goes into cars and trucks as ethanol fuel. Some farmers hope greater use of ethanol will drive new markets for corn.

Ethanol is made from plant matter that contains complex carbohydrates, or starch. Starch breaks down into simple sugars. And yeast organisms break down the sugars into alcohol.

Ethanol has a long history. It is ethyl alcohol, also called grain alcohol, the same kind found in alcoholic drinks.

Corn is not the only crop that can be used to make ethanol. Barley, wheat, even the leaves and stalks of corn, rice and sugar cane can be used.

In some parts of the country, fuel companies are required to add ethanol to gasoline as a way to reduce air pollution. The United States Department of Energy says many automobiles can run on ten percent ethanol without any need for changes.

The government has supported the development of vehicles with the ability to use a mixture called E-eighty-five. It is eighty-five percent ethanol and fifteen percent gasoline.

Some people may not even know that their cars and trucks have this ability. Many of these vehicles are common models made by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.

A number of state laws support the use of ethanol. So does federal law. The Energy Policy Act of two thousand five requires the production of fifteen thousand million liters of renewable fuels this year. There are also tax reductions for ethanol makers, farmers and buyers of vehicles that can run on E-eighty-five.

Some experts, however, say they are concerned that using food crops to make fuel is bad policy. Some say it might use more energy than it produces. Others say using a lot of corn for fuel might shrink food supplies. But the process that separates starch to make ethanol, called wet milling, uses only part of the corn.

Plant-based fuels are not new. For many years Brazil has used fuel made with alcohol from sugar cane.

Related topic:
Scientists Study Switchgrass for Ethanol and Energy Production

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: Mario Ritter
First published: January 30, 2006

Producing Rubber from Sunflowers

Sunflower plants grow tall and produce a beautiful flower. The seeds are good to eat and produce a high quality oil for cooking. But scientists in the United States hope that sunflowers will also become known for their rubber.

The scientists are attempting to improve the quality and amount of latex from sunflower plants. Latex is made of rubber particles, water and other plant substances. It is a higher value product than solid rubber.

The scientists believe that sunflowers could reduce America’s dependence on imported natural rubber and rubber made from oil products. The United States imports more than one-million tons of natural rubber each year.

Katrina Cornish is an expert on how plants produce rubber. She works for the Agriculture Department in its Agricultural Research Service office in Albany, California.

Katrina Cornish notes that more than two-thousand-five-hundred kinds of plants produce natural latex. But she says few have the qualities that scientists want. Most plants are too small or grow too slowly. Others do not produce enough latex. Or the latex they produce is not good enough.

Sunflowers are large and grow quickly. Currently, latex produced from sunflowers is not good enough to be used to make products because of the quality and amount. However, the scientists hope to improve the situation in the future through genetic engineering.

Katrina Cornish and her team are experimenting with several different kinds of sunflowers. She is working with scientists from Colorado State University and Ohio State University. They are interested in the kinds of plants that produce the highest amounts of latex in stems and leaves. They are working with sunflower plants that grow in northern areas where most of the American sunflower crop is grown.

The scientists also work with other kinds of plants. One is the guayule [why-YOU-lee]. This is a desert plant native to the American Southwest. Katrina Cornish says Native Americans chewed the plant to remove latex for rubber balls and other goods. She says early automobile tires were made with guayule.

Last year a company working with her team opened a processing center. Guayule products will be made for people who get a severe health reaction to gloves and other goods made of other kinds of natural latex.

Related topic: Common or Annual Sunflower

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: George Grow
First published: February 10, 2004

Coffee Plants Yield More if a Forest is Nearby

A study in Costa Rica shows that conserving tropical forests might increase yields of coffee, one of the world's most valuable export commodities. U.S. scientists found that coffee fields adjacent to forests had higher production than those farther away.

The economic value of maintaining tropical forests near farms might be much greater than previously thought. A team of U.S. researchers measured the output of 12 coffee fields on a big Costa Rican plantation and found that plots within one kilometer of a forest produced 20 percent more coffee than plots farther away. The quality of the yield was better, too, with 27 percent fewer small, misshapen beans.

The study leader, biologist Taylor Ricketts of the World Wildlife Fund, says the key to the improved harvest was increased pollination by bees from the nearby forest.

"Coffee does self-pollinate, but if you allow bees to visit and bring in cross pollen, it will yield better," he says.

Several studies from around the world have already shown this, but this new study in the Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences is unique because it measured the economic value of bee pollination to the plantation. Mr. Ricketts' team used data on the farm's yield and market prices to show that just two coffee plots nearest the forest helped boost the farm's income significantly. They yielded $60,000 more a year in coffee, because of the pollination of bees from the nearby woodlands.

"So that if they were cut down or destroyed for any other reason, that farm could expect to earn about $60,000 less than they had been so far," Mr. Ricketts noted.

In fact, the study found that the value of tropical forests can be greater than other land uses for which they are often destroyed. The World Wildlife Fund says that cattle pasture, for example, would yield only about $24,000 a year, less than half of what pollination services provide the coffee plantation.

Mr. Ricketts calls the findings good news for conservationists and growers, who sometimes are at odds over land use.

"What this means is that the goals of conservation and economic development are in some cases more aligned than we thought," he explained. "Conserving natural systems can benefit the species that live there and also the human communities that live nearby them."

Cross-pollination from birds, bees and other insects is of value to more than just coffee. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says two-thirds of the world's crops require it. But Mr. Ricketts and his colleagues point out that recent declines in wild and managed bee populations throughout the world have aroused concern, prompting the United Nations to create the International Pollinators Initiative. This is a program to coordinate scientific investigation on ways to conserve animal pollinators.

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: David McAlary
First published: August 5, 2004

Bee Shortage Threatens California's Crops

A tiny pest is threatening California's community of honey bees and therefore its crops, which could affect the harvest of some of America's favorite fruits.

Bees are especially important to California's almond orchards because they go from flower to flower, pollinating the blossoms that will grow into almonds.

Jim Huddleson, an almond grower, says without bees, "Very little crop, just a little bit from the wind maybe a very small crop if any."

The problem--thousands of bee colonies are under attack from a parasitic mite.

"Actually, it is about the size of a head of a pin that actually attaches itself to the body of a bee and essentially sucks life out of it," said Orin Johnson, a California beekeeper.

Beekeepers like Orin Johnson rent hives and put them in the almond orchards. When the bees are finished pollinating the almond blossoms, the hives will be moved to cherry groves, apple orchards and melon patches. The bee shortage means farmers are paying much more per hive, if they can find any. Beekeepers have to bring in hives from Florida, on the other side of the country, and even as far away as Australia.

But Orin Johnson is doing everything he can to keep his bees healthy, including sticking his bare hand into the hive to check on the bees' health.

"That is why some people say beekeepers are nuts. Grown men playing with insects," says Mr. Johnson.

But for many farmers, the bee shortage is no laughing matter as they struggle to save their crops.

Related topic: Attracting Bees, Butterflies and Moths to Your Backyard

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: Kimberly Russell
First published: February 25, 2005

Scientists Search for Healthy Uses for Tobacco

Tobacco has been the major cash crop in the southern state of Maryland for 400 years. But with growing concerns about the health risks of smoking, the state is paying farmers to switch to other crops. However, none is as profitable per hectare as tobacco. So researchers at the University of Maryland are looking for alternative uses for the crop, which could end up helping society and tobacco farmers.

There are a lot of bad things associated with tobacco use: lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease. But at the University of Maryland in College Park, a team of researchers is focusing on the plant's good side -- its nutritional benefits. "Yes," insists agronomist Bob Kratochvil, "believe it or not, tobacco does have a lot of very good properties."

Professor Kratochvil runs the University's research farm, where they're growing tobacco, a plant he says has enormous potential for medicine, cosmetics, and energy. And, he points out, scientists hope they can even tease food out of the inedible plant. "It's got excellent quality proteins - human food proteins," he explains. "They're tasteless, odorless, the same quality as you have in soybeans or with milk. One of the potential benefits is that, supposedly, it will not cause allergies, as some folks have allergies to milk, (they're) lactose intolerant. Wheat is another crop; there is some protein allergy problem that some folks have. It's thought the tobacco protein [could] be something in special diets."

While tobacco leaves contain many proteins, finding the ones of value is the challenge for researchers like Martin Lo. Using a device called a screw press, he processes the research farm's harvest, extracting protein from the plants and analyzing it. "The small chopped-up tobacco leaves will be sent through this … screw press, and then we press the juice out of it, leaving the residual as the sludge."

From that juice, Professor Lo extracts protein crystals. He has identified two proteins so far. Both contain all 21 amino acids essential for human health. Because our bodies can't synthesize these amino acids, we have to get them from our food. Tobacco proteins could be an inexpensive, easy nutritional additive.

Professor Lo also sees the possibility of one day using tobacco proteins in medicines. He is studying several amino acids from the peptide segment of the protein. "[I want] to see if any of the protein segments actually match the therapeutic protein that might be of value to the pharmaceutical industry, to replace those proteins from animal origin. Those are considered more risky because there might be some disease that can be transmitted through animal protein." He explains that extracts from plants are much safer.

Another goal of the tobacco researchers is to eventually replace some petroleum-based products with plant-based ones. Remember the sludge left in the screw press? As bio-tech entrepreneur Neil Belson, another member of the University of Maryland tobacco team, points out, "tobacco produces an enormous amount of leaf matter that's
left over after you get the proteins out, and it's from this material left over that we envision looking for petroleum substitutes."

But first, the University team must generate more tobacco protein. Since the project began three years ago, Martin Lo has produced only a small amount of his two proteins. He says he hopes that by the end of next year, the researchers will have perfected the process of tobacco protein extraction. Then, they will seek investors to help build facilities where the proteins can be produced in large amounts.

The ultimate goal, according to project advisor Gary Hodge, is to help tobacco farmers in the state of Maryland. "If we can [identify] a way for them to continue growing tobacco for beneficial purposes," he explains, "then we can begin in Maryland to see the transition of a smoking tobacco-based ag[ricultural] economy to one that produces benefits for society, and maybe that will be picked up in the other tobacco growing states, and we can begin to see something very positive come out of this 400-year legacy of smoking tobacco production."

Since 2000, when the state began paying farmers to stop growing tobacco, many have turned to other agricultural commodities. Some have planted vineyards, others are growing corn or soybeans, but no single crop has proven as lucrative as tobacco. The work being done at the University of Maryland could make tobacco farming a profitable, and respectable, business again.

Source:
VOA News Service
Author: Mary Saner
First published: November 30, 2005