They developed to produce a sulfur based chemical defense system . They are incendiary in the sense that they can do harm and they delight. They came from smelly and yet indispensable allium family.

Their sulfur based unique defense system give the alliums their distinctive flavors.
They deploy them when their tissues are breached by biting, crushing or cutting. The chemicals are highly irritating, and discourage most creatures from coming back.

They kill microbes and repel insects. Any cook knows that chopping alliums release chemical that sting. Eric Block, for over 40 years worked on allium chemistry at the State University of Albany, explains that different alliums stockpile different sulfur chemicals to create their weapons and this accounts for their varying flavors.

Mixed evidence for allium efficacy were carefully evaluated by researchers and explicates the chemistry and treatment of garlic breath. It can emanate from deep within for a day or more.

Onions, shallots, scallions and leeks produce a small sulfur molecule that launched garlic itself from the damaged tissue and attacks our eyes and nasal passages. This long distance weapon is called the lachrymatory factor and it’s extremely potent.

According to Dr. Block, the only tiny amounts get anywhere near your face when you cut onions is enough to make you tear up. Its pure compound when smelled is overwhelmingly painful, like being punched in the eye socket.

However, the heat of cooking make their potent weapons short lived thus eliminating entirely their pungency and transform them into new delicious and palatable delight.

Any deficiency in nutrients, plants usually manifest them by the yellowing of leaves, growth stunting or in severe cases, necrosis or even death of plants.

According to the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) at Los Baños, Laguna the minus one element is an old forgotten method of identifying nutrient limitations. It is more appropriately called a technique rather than a technology.

The method is called minus one element technique because each fertilizer formulation is done in seven planting pots, including that of the complete, it has to exclude either one of each of the elements enumerated and label the minus element in each pot separately: minus nitrogen (-N), minus phosphorus (-P), minus Potassium (-K), minus sulfur (-S) and minus copper (Cu).

An example is that, the pot is labeled (- N), it means that the plant subsists only on the available nitrogen (N) on the soil. The performance of the rice plants will determine whether the soil has enough of these nutrients.

Grow the plants up to 45 days after sowing or transplanting , on the 14th day you start observing the plant growth specifically on nutrient deficiency symptoms.

Compare the growth of the plants in each pot with that of complete treatment or formulation that must be healthy. If the growth of the plant in all pots is as healthy as that of the complete treatment, the soil must have sufficient nutrients.

After 45 days, compare the biomass for each treatment with that of the complete. If the biomass of the treatment is less than 80 percent of that in the complete, the nutrient represented in the label is deficient. The biomass is the dry weight of the rice plant excluding the root.

Taking reference from this premise, the minus one element technique provides a low cost, easy and reliable method in soil nutrient determination in actual field conditions.

As early as 14 days after transplanting, the rice plant may show nutrient deficiency symptoms, including those which are not detected by chemical analysis.

According to Dr. Teodula M. Corton, program leader of the Rice for Adverse Environments Program at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), that in some instances results from both chemical analysis and the minus one element technique differs each other.

The chemical analysis may show above critical levels of a soil nutrient while the minus one element technique may show deficiency of the same element. According to Corton, this is because the availability of some soil nutrients is affected by flooding or submergence.

One example, is zinc (Zn), which is highly sensitive to flooding. Flooding produces biochemical reactions whose products interact with Zn. This interaction may transform Zn into unavailable forms through precipitation, absorption, or complex formation.

Thus, soil chemical analysis may detect sufficient amounts of Zn because it uses air dried soil but in field conditions where the soil is flooded, it becomes deficient.

The minus one element technique is developed by researchers at PhilRice, Los Baños which is a good alternative to those who have no access to soil laboratories.

The procedure is easy, no need for a soil laboratory expert to conduct the experiment and interpret the results. It can be conducted in the field or in your backyard.

The best time to conduct the test is at the start of land preparation so that you will have enough time to adjust fertilizer application during transplanting.

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An oil contained in avocados could deter insect infestation by the most important pest of vegetable crops, one which caused damage to such crops as corn, celery, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cotton and alfalfa.

The natural insecticide could also make use of unmarketable fruit that drops from avocado trees prematurely during severe weather.

Research by John Trumble, University of California Riverside (UCR) professor of entomology have determined that the natural insecticide discourages feeding by the beet armyworm known as “generalist” insect for the variety of plants it attacks.

The beet armyworm is also developing resistance to many pesticides being used against it. Prospects for commercial synthesis of the oil compounds are promising, in part, because the lab synthesis is relatively simple and the materials appear stable even in daylight conditions.

“If synthesis proves unfeasible or expensive, the oil is easily extracted from the fruit,” Trumble said. “Prospects are good for eventual registration of an avocado oil product because the oils are commonly used in cosmetics, and because the fruit has been consumed by people for centuries without any reports of significant negative effects,” he added.

Trumble and associates, Cesar Rodriguez-Saona and Joyce Millar have so far isolated five compounds in the avocado oil, which is contained in specialized cells of the avocado fruit called idioblast cells.

In laboratory tests, each of the compounds called avocado furans, discourages beet armyworms from feeding. It is not yet known if the insect stops feeding after tasting the oil or if its mere contact with the fruit deter its feeding, Rodriguez-Saona said.

Still, a great deal of research and development remains before an avocado based product can be commercialized as a pest management tool.

The effectiveness of the active compounds needs to be tested in the field, a commercial level synthesis needs to be developed and any potential effects on mammals need to be documented, Trumble said.

furans, idioblastThe scientists findings have been published in the Journal of Economic Entomology and Journal of Chemical Ecology.

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It is currently used as a parent plant in breeding bright red conventional and inter-generic vandaceous orchid hybrids.

It is also used as an accent in garden shows and flower arrangements. Some of these plants can grow very tall so they require stakes to support their long stems.

The matured Fire Orchid grows in moderate hot sun, and needs to be protected from intense heat especially at noon time to prevent leaf scorching. There is need for regular watering of this plant during summer.

Fire Orchids can be planted in soil enriched with animal manure and mulched with wood shavings or coconut husks. Some growers plant them in 12-inch diameter clay pots with gravel plus charcoal or in wood slat baskets as their propagating materials.

Plants are often staked with bamboo or thick wire to make the stem upright. For epiphytic types, they can be mounted on wood branches, trunks or drift wood.

To fertilize, spray dilute orchid foliar fertilizers with trace elements once a week, usually after watering them in the morning. Protect plants from weevils and sucking insects like mites and aphids by spraying environmentally friendly insecticides that can be available in the market.

Allow proper spacing and ventilation between plants to facilitate air movements to keep them properly ventilated and prevent them from spoiling.

Generally, Renanthera has 15 known species available containing numerous flowers and variance shade of colors ranging from red, yellow and orange.

In the Philippines there are four species of Renanthera found. Three of them are endemic, namely the Renanthera monacheca, Renanthera philippinensis and Remanthera storiei.

The other one is the Renanthera matutina which is indigenous. The Renantheras are closely related to the Vanda and Arachnis family of orchids.

These plants are usually epiphytes. Occasionally, some plants start their life as a soil growing orchid, and its stem gradually climbs up the trunk of a tree and becomes an epiphyte.

• fire orchids

It became an official project called Green Hand two years later when the Green Party moved into city hall under socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe.

Paris is not usually known as a green city, but there are more and more small garden plots are flourishing up in the middle of the city.

People who live in the neighborhood and like to garden take care of the plots and open them to passers by.

Since then the city has given interested hobby gardeners access to plots complete with fences and water sources.

The gardeners founded an association and finance their projects through membership fees. There are about 60 community gardens in Paris.

Gilles Roux, 60, one of the founders of the community garden movement in Paris, stomps his feet, waves his arms in the air and darts between the rows of his beloved vegetable garden while complaining about the birds.

“The pigeons are eating all the seeds we sow,” gripes Roux. He spends several days at the garden, which is like many urban gardens that have become popular in other urban settings.

Dressed in a blue checkered shirt and floppy hat, Gilles goes to the garden proudly and points out what he and other gardeners have achieved.

Cornflower,Marguerites and roses bloom in some of the 50 circular beds, others have herbs and vegetables gardens such as tomatoes.

According to the association’s charter, members are required to open their gardens at least twice a week to their visitors.

In addition there are about a dozen of private community gardens, which are considered green islands in a city that has few parks compared with other major capitals.

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Genetically engineered versions of the canola plant are flourishing in the form of roadside weeds in North Dakota, in which scientists say, that it is one of the first instances of a genetically modified crop establishing itself in the wild.

The roadside plant apparently start growing when seeds blow from fields or fall out of trucks while transporting the crops to market. In the plains of Canada, where Canola is widely grown, roadside biotech plants resistant to herbicide Roundup have become a problem, said Alexis Knipel, who has just completed a doctoral dissertation on the subject at the University of Manitoba.

Since some farmers can no longer use Roundup to control the stray canola plants, they have returned in plowing their fields to control the weeds, a practice that contributes to soil erosion Knipel said.

The proliferation of roadside canola would make it difficult to keep organic canola free of genetically engineered material, Knipel added .
Even before biotech crops were developed, canola grew on roadsides, it said; now that 90 percent of the canola planted by farmers is engineered, it would be reasonable to expect a similar percentage in roadside.

Samples of the 604 plants collected, 80 percent where genetically engineered, some were Roundup ready, with a gene conferring resistance to Roundup, also known as glyphosate. Others were Liberty Link crops, with a gene conferring resistance to glufosinate according to Cynthia Sagers, a biology professor at the University of Arkansas, who led the study.

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Ethiopian farmers have been planting enset bananas for nearly 10,000 years. Today, it provides food for about 15 million people mainly in the south and southwest of Ethiopia.

One enset plant produces about 35 kilos of food, and the areas where enset is cultivated support a much higher population density than in areas of cereal production.

A small farm of 2,500 square meters can provide a family of 6 people with food for a year. Edible starch is extracted from the corm and pseudostem and fermented to make “kocho”, an important food for millions in Ethiopia.

The kocho can be stored without spoilage for up to 10 years, providing a unique insurance system and food security for poor subsistence farmers in times of drought.

Enset is a very drought resistance an ideal crop for a changing climate brought about by global warming, where the weather pattern is abnormal. That is why the areas where it is cultivated have never suffered from famine, even in extreme drought and rain failure.

Enset can be grown without the use of pesticides. It helps prevent erosion, preserve soil moisture through its perennial canopy of leaves and provides partial shade for inter crops such as coffee.

Aside from its being source of food for people and livestock, enset is also a source of fiber for making ropes and twine, shopping bags, handbags, suitcases, burlap, sieve and mats.

These plants which have been introduced outside Ethiopia, used enset as ornamental plants.

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These hybrid transgenic weeds resist the herbicides that were designed to kill them. “When a crop grows near its weedy relative, it’s inevitable that the genetically-engineered trait will move into the weeds,” said Allison Snow, an associate professor of plant biology at Ohio State University.

Snow in collaboration with the Risoe National Laboratory in Denmark, has found that the offspring of herbicide resistant hybrids between transgenic oilseed rape and one of its weedy relatives reproduced as prolifically as an unaltered weeds.

This brings down the hypothesis of some scientists that hybridization might cause some negative characteristics to emerge in a weed that would limit its reproduction, for instance, a hybrid weed might produce fewer flowers than a pure weed.

The study suggests that, at least in the case of oilseed rape, weeds that cross with commercial crops and acquire a specialized transgene will encounter fewer obstacles to reproduction. The results of the study was presented to the Ecological Society of America.

“If farmers spray their crops with the same herbicide every year, the only weeds to survive will be the ones with transgenes, and the transgenes will spread even faster,” Snow pointed out. As transgenes in cultivated crop changes, traits could accumulate in the weeds.

The tendency is that, a weed could develop a resistance to three to four herbicides as it acquired genes from consecutive generations of crops over many years.

Snow and her colleagues have crossed a transgenic herbicide resistant of plants to its weedy cousin and saw that the gene for the herbicide resistance persisted on about half of the weed population.

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They suggested that instead of sleeping pill or a valium, a nosefull of soothing Jasmine is just as effective in calming your nerves and helping you to get restful sleep.

The researchers have now been granted a patent for their discovery. The report was made available in the current issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The pioneering research was done in collaboration with researchers from the Heinrich Heine University and researchers from Ruhr University Bochein (RUB).

They have discovered that the two fragrances vertacetal – coeur (VC) and the chemical variation (PI245B) have the same molecular mechanism.

Instead of applying his technical expertise, Ji is employing the traditional methods to control pests and weeds. There is a surging demand of organic foods in China because consumers now are paying closer attention of what they are eating.

The market now is worth US $732 million dollars and it is expected to increase by 20 to 30 percent a year for the next five years according to Huang Dejun, chief analyst with Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant.

China’s economy is brisk in double digits and its citizens are getting wealthier and accordingly they usually are demanding a better quality life.

China’s food industry has its own ups and downs due to the melamine scandal. They learn the lesson of how the industrial chemical melamine scandal had affected their food industry and how it has been blown into catastrophic proportion that has not only shocked China and the world but it has also tarnished their reputation as a dependable food producer worldwide.

It was a wake up call for the Chinese farmers to go organic in raising their crops the natural way. Chinese vegetable farmers rather than using of what was potentially harmful herbicide in the controlling of weeds, they now learn opt to for straw mulch which is just as effective.

They now learn to intersperse variety of crops to keep away pest infestation and the spread of plant diseases. They have learned that farming with chemicals deplete the nutrients of the soil and harmed the environment as well.

They have known that more and more people have now realized the root cause of their food safety problems and they are willing to participate of what they can contribute.

Shi Yan, manager of an organic farm outside Beijing says that consumer interest in organic produce shows “everyone is concern the safety of our food.”