harvest

The Lockdown Cleans Up Indian Air | Earth Wise

May 13, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Our stories often discuss how human activities change the natural environment. With most of us confined to our homes, the lack of human activities is having profound effects on the environment. We are talking about some of these this week.

India suffers from some of the worst air pollution in the world. Of the most polluted cities in the world, 21 out of 30 were in India in 2019. According to World Health Organization standards, at least 140 million people in India breathe air containing 10 times or more greater levels than the safe limit for pollutants. Air pollution contributes to the premature death of 2 million Indians every year.

Half of India’s air pollution comes from industry, 27% from vehicles, and 17% from crop burning. Crop burning is prevalent because it is much cheaper than mechanical tilling after the harvest.

On March 25, the Indian government placed its 1.3 billion citizens under a strict lockdown to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The country-wide mandate decreased activity at factories and drastically reduced car, bus, truck, and airplane traffic.

Within one week, NASA satellite sensor observed aerosol levels at a 20-year low for this time of year in northern India. Aerosols are tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in the air that reduce visibility and can damage the human lungs and heart. Some aerosols have natural sources, such as dust storms, volcanic eruptions, and forest fires. But many come from human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and croplands. Scientists expected to see changes in atmospheric conditions during the Indian lockdown, but the current changes are dramatic. They also present a unique opportunity to separate how natural and human sources of aerosols affect the atmosphere.

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Airborne Particle Levels Plummet in Northern India

Photo, posted April 29, 2020, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Metal From Plants | Earth Wise

March 31, 2020 By EarthWise 2 Comments

Large amounts of metal in soil are generally bad for plants. But there are about 700 species of plants that thrive in metal-rich soils. These plants don’t just tolerate minerals from soil in their bodies but actually seem to hoard them to ridiculous levels.

In areas where soils are naturally rich in nickel, typically in the tropics and Mediterranean basin, plants have either died off or have adapted to become nickel loving. Slicing open a tree with this adaptation produces a neon blue-green sap that is actually one-quarter nickel, which is far more concentrated than the ore that typically feeds commercial nickel smelters.

A group of researchers from the University of Melbourne and other institutions is investigating whether this phenomenon is not just interesting but might also be of real commercial value. They established a plot of land in a rural village in Borneo and have been harvesting growth from nickel-hyper accumulating plants. Every six to twelve months, a farmer shaves off one foot of growth from these plants and either burns or squeezes the metal out. After a short purification, they end up with about 500 pounds of nickel citrate, potentially worth thousands of dollars on international markets.

Phytomining – extracting minerals from hyper-accumulating plants – cannot fully replace traditional mining techniques. But the technology could enable areas with toxic soils to be made productive and might allow mining companies to use plants to clean up their former mines and waste while actually collecting some revenue.

There are other plants that suck up cobalt, zinc, and similarly crucial metals. With growing demand for metals, perhaps it is time to harvest them on the farm.

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Down on the Farm That Harvests Metal From Plants

Photo courtesy of the University of Queensland.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Protecting Canola Crops From Frost

November 20, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Canola is one of Canada’s most valuable crops. In fact, Canada is the world’s largest exporter of canola oil. The international market for canola oil is $27 billion a year. The oil is very popular because it has a relatively low amount of saturated fat, a substantial amount of monosaturated fat, and is very neutral tasting.

Canadian canola farmers worry a great deal about late season, non-lethal frosts because the frosts prevent chlorophyll – a photosynthetic pigment in the seeds – from breaking down, a process they call “degreening”. The farmers seek to have high-quality yellow embryos at seed maturity. When the harvest contains more than 2% of green seeds, it can no longer produce Grade No. 1 quality oil. When green seeds are processed to extract canola oil, the chlorophyll in the seeds reduces the oil’s storability and quality. As a result, farmers receive a lower price for frost-damaged green seed canola. This costs Canadian farmers and estimated $150 million annually.

Researchers at the University of Calgary have developed gene-based technology to produce canola plants that can withstand late-season frost and still produce high-quality seed. They identified a specific protein that controls chlorophyll breakdown and seed maturity. Genetic manipulation is able to enhance the seed degreening system. They were able to reduce the amount of chlorophyll in the genetically modified canola lines by 60% after the plants were exposed to non-lethal frost.

Ultimately, the researchers plan to develop a method to incorporate the modification into canola hybrid lines in such a way that it will be readily accepted by consumers concerned about genetically modified organisms.

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New technology helps protect valuable canola crops from frost

Photo, posted August 29, 2018, courtesy of Tinker and Rove via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Pulling Water From The Air

October 14, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A couple of years ago, we reported on the early development of a device that harvests water from the air that even works in the low humidity environment of a desert. Since then, the researchers from UC Berkeley have continued to improve the device and it is now 10 times better than it was two years ago.

The harvester is based on a porous water-absorbing material called a metal-organic framework, or MOF. The latest version can pull more than five cups of water from low-humidity air per day for every kilogram of the improved MOF material and that is more than enough water to sustain a person. The harvester cycles around the clock and is powered by solar panels and a battery.

Previous techniques for condensing water from air at low humidity required cooling down the air to temperatures below freezing, which is not economically practical. The MOF-based device does not require any cooling.

The Berkeley researchers have formed a startup company – Water Harvester, Inc. – which is now testing and will soon market a device the size of a microwave oven that can supply 7 to 10 liters of water per day, which is enough drinking and cooking water for two or three adults.

An even larger version of the harvester, which would be the size of a small refrigerator, would provide 200 to 250 liters of water per day, enough for a household to drink, cook, and shower. The new company envisions a village-scale harvester that would produce 20,000 liters per day, still running off of solar panels and a battery.

Water Harvester believes the water needs for many people can come out of the thin air.

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Water harvester makes it easy to quench your thirst in the desert

Photo courtesy of Grant Glover (University of South Alabama) via UC Berkeley.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Mexico’s Wonder Plant

September 13, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In 1979, an American naturalist named Thomas Hallberg visiting a small town in Oaxaca, Mexico was amazed to find a type of local maize – or corn – that grew nearly 20 feet high in poor-quality soil even though the local farmers did not use any fertilizer.

The unique corn plant had aerial roots that grew a mucous-like gel just before harvest season. It seemed totally implausible, but the plant seemed to be fixing its own nitrogen: extracting it from the air and somehow making it useful to the plant.

In 1992, Hallberg returned with a group of Mexican scientists and collected samples to study in his lab. His research showed that the maize indeed received nitrogen from the air through its aerial roots. It took over 20 years to figure out what was going on in the plants. It turns out that bacteria that thrive in the low-oxygen environment of the maize’s mucus pulls nitrogen from the air and feeds it to the plant.

Scientists will probably spend years figuring out if a commercial application of this indigenous maize is viable. It isn’t guaranteed that the self-fertilizing trait of the plant can be bred into a commercial crop. But if it can, the payoff would be huge. Farmers spend more than $3 billion a year on corn fertilizer in the US alone.

A vexing problem is who should reap the financial benefits of the maize. The isolated village where the plant is grown has already signed an agreement to share in any such benefits. But there are other Oaxacan villages that also grow the plant.

Mexico’s wonder plant is likely to be caught up in the growing issue of biopiracy, which is the exploitation of indigenous knowledge and biological resources without permission.

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Indigenous Maize: Who Owns the Rights to Mexico’s ‘Wonder’ Plant?

Photo credit: ALLEN VAN DEYNZE/UC DAVIS

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Saved By The Trees

February 1, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The island of Kokota, part of the Zanzibar Archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, is tiny – only one square kilometer and home to just 500 people. For centuries, its residents subsisted by harvesting the islet’s natural resources, including its trees.

By the early 21st century, the deforestation had become unsustainable and the islanders faced a crisis. Fisheries were depleted, and rivers ran dry. The changing climate brought rising sea levels, more erratic rainfall, and coral bleaching in the surrounding waters. The situation looked hopeless.

But in recent years, the island has come back from the brink of ruin. Reforestation efforts began in 2008 on the larger island of Pemba and on Kokota itself, led by a Pemba local and a Canadian tree planter who formed the non-profit Community Forests International. Since then, nearly 2 million trees have been planted on the two islands. Enthusiastic volunteers on Kokota usually help plant trees during the rainy season, when water is plentiful.

Community Forests International, along with spearheading the tree planting effort, also built Kokota’s first school, and installed rainwater storage tanks for the community.

The conservation group is now devising ways for Kokota to make more money by diversifying its agriculture with crops that grow well in its climate including spices like cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. They are also helping locals to grow more and different vegetables in their gardens.

Small, poor communities are often the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as drought, powerful storms, and depleted fisheries. Tiny Kokota provides an example of an environmental comeback. Fighting climate change requires economic solutions along with environmental solutions. For this one tiny island, it appears to have been saved by the trees.

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This island was on the brink of disaster. Then, they planted thousands of trees.

Photo, posted July 18, 2015, courtesy of Marco Zanferrari via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Yet Another Hot Year

September 14, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

This summer has seen record heat in many places and some record-breaking wildfires. In short, it looks a lot like the future that scientists have been warning about in the era of climate change. And still some people continue to argue about whether anything is happening to the climate.

[Read more…] about Yet Another Hot Year

Removing CO2 With Plants

February 9, 2018 By EarthWise 2 Comments

Plants are the world’s great storehouse of carbon dioxide. That is why deforestation is a major contributor to climate change. If only there were more trees and plants, more of the CO2 in the atmosphere would be absorbed and could no longer trap heat in the atmosphere.

Pesticides And Food Insecurity

April 19, 2017 By EarthWise

A newly released report by the United Nations takes a strong stance against the use of industrial agrochemicals, saying that they are not necessary for feeding the world. The continued use of pesticides at the rate the world currently does in fact can have very detrimental consequences.

Dying California Trees

December 16, 2016 By EarthWise

California’s trees are dying. According to the U.S. Forest Service, more than five years of drought in California has left 102 million dead trees across 7.7 million acres of forest. In fact, 62 million trees have died this year alone – a 100% increase from 2015.

Food Waste And Behavior

May 27, 2016 By WAMC WEB

In a recent article in Science entitled “Waste not, want not, emit less,” Danish researchers looked at the problem of food waste in both developed and developing countries. Overall, about a third of the world’s food is lost or wasted, but the reasons for this vary in different parts of the world.