Seed SOS

The seeds grown for our food were earlier in the hands of farmers and public-sector plant breeders. Today, however, for an increasing amount of seeds the first link in our food chain is controlled by a handful of multinational corporations. Still there are a number of farmers who save their own seeds and many backyard vegetable gardeners and communities are also following different techniques to secure seeds and a future for food outside of corporate control.

The national agricultural research systems (NARS) come forward to solve farmer’s problems. The use of participatory rapid appraisal surveys (PRAS) by both NARS and the extension services have highlighted issues and farming practices previously unknown or considered not worth bothering about. They highlight farmer resourcefulness which should be harnessed to provide possibilities to develop more efficient technology.

The seed bank proper comprises several major components: a seed store, a germplasm repository, a herbarium and a documentation section for holding records and information on local and scientific knowledge, and an administrative and records unit. The seed store represents a seed reserve system consisting largely of local varieties, including those enhanced and/or selected and multiplied on-farm through either participatory plant breeding (PPB) and/or participatory variety selection (PVS), as well as locally adapted and adopted introductions obtained by way of exchange or from various other sources.

The disappearance of biodiversity and seed sovereignty creates a major crisis for agriculture and food security, corporations are pushing governments to use public money to destroy the public seed supply and replace it with unreliable non-renewable, patented seed which must be bought each and every year

For more information visit this http://www.seedbuzz.com/knowledge-center/article/seed-sos

Impact of Bt Cotton Seeds on Indian Agriculture

 Introduction:
 

Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt is a naturally occurring soil bacterium mostly used by farmers to control Lepidopteran insects because of its toxin producing ability. Scientists have introduced the gene responsible for making the toxin into a range of crops, including cotton. Bt expresses the qualities of the insecticidal gene throughout the growing cycle of the plant. Cotton and other monocultured crops require an intensive use of pesticides as various types of pests attack these crops causing extensive damage. Over the past 40 years, many pests have developed resistance to pesticides.

Cotton crops are very susceptible to pest attacks and use up more than 10 per cent of the world's pesticides and over 25 per cent of insecticides. As of now, cotton is the most popular of the Bt crops. The Bt gene was isolated and transferred from a bacterium bacillus thurigiensis to American cotton. The American cotton was subsequently crossed with Indian cotton to introduce the gene into native varieties. So far, the only successful approach to engineering crops for insect tolerance has been the addition of Bt toxin, a family of toxins originally derived from soil bacteria. The Bt toxin contained by the Bt crops is no different from other chemical pesticides, but causes much less damage to the environment.

Benefits:

Bt cotton is in many ways an ideal candidate for introduction as a transgenic commercial crop. It is basically grown as a fibre crop, while cotton seed oil used for consumption is free of proteins, including Bt protein. Environmental safety concerns are negligible because of the limited movement of heavy cotton pollen and the existence of natural genetic barriers that preclude out crossing with native Indian cotton. There is also no known compatibility of cultivated cotton with any wild relatives occurring in India. Cotton is not found as a weed in the global production systems and Bt is unlikely to confer any advantage that would result in Bt cotton establishing as a weed.

Read more on Impacts on: http://seedbuzz.com/knowledge-center/article/impact-of-bt-cotton-seeds-on-indian-agriculture

Impact of Pesticides Use in Agriculture

A pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances used to destroy, suppress or alter the life cycle of any pest. A pesticide can be a naturally derived or synthetically produced substance. A pesticide can also be an organism, for example, the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis which is used to control a number of insect pests, or even a genetically modified crop. Pesticides include bactericides, baits, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, lures, rodenticides and repellents. They are used in commercial, domestic, urban and rural environments. Pesticides are unique among toxic substances. Most environmental toxins are an unwanted byproduct of another process (for example, outflow from a manufacturing plant or emissions from an automobile engine). Pesticides are chemicals designed to be harmful to a target pest and purposely introduced into the environment to do their job of managing insects, bacteria, weeds, rodents, or other pests.

Pesticides can be toxic to humans and lower animals. It can take a small amount of some toxins to kill. And other toxins that are slower acting, may take a long time to cause harm to the human body.

Pesticide production can be dangerous, too. One disaster at a pesticide manufacturing plant was in Bhopal, India. The plant accidentally released 40 tons of an intermediate chemical gas, methyl isocyanate, used to produce some pesticides. In that disaster, nearly 3,000 people were killed immediately, overall approximately 15,000 deaths occurred. Today nearly 100,000 people suffer from mild to severe permanent damage as a result of that disaster. In China, it's estimated that 500,000 people suffer pesticide poisoning annually, and some 500 of them die.

Impact of pesticide on agriculture is showing a negative result, which would affect the soil over all productivety.
Refer to:  http://seedbuzz.com/knowledge-center/article/impact-of-pesticides-use-in-agriculture

Lettuce Seeds

Lettuce (Lactuca Sativa ) is a hardy annual plant of the aster or sunflower family Asteraceae. Lettuce as we call it, is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, such as soups, sandwiches and wraps. One type is grown for its stems, which are eaten either raw or cooked. Lettuce is a good source of vitamin A and potassium, as well as minor source for several other vitamins and nutrients. Despite its beneficial properties, contaminated lettuce is often the cause for bacterial, viral and parasitic outbreaks in humans.

Lettuce seeds are commercially grown to prevent the induction of thermo or photo-inhibition during the germination process. A secondary advantage of lettuce seed priming is a faster rate of radicle emergence across temperatures when seeds are planted. The combination of these advantages allows for more rapid and uniform field emergence, less variation in plant size, and thus a greater number of cartons per acre at harvest packout. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but also sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce was first cultivated by the ancient Egyptians, who turned it from a weed whose seeds were used to make oil into a plant grown for its leaves. It spread to the Greeks and Romans, who gave it the name "lactuca", from which the modern "lettuce" ultimately derives.

Iceberg Lettuce

Chinese Lettuce

 Types of lettuce:

• Butterhead/Bibb lettuce
• Chinese lettuce
• Crisphead/Iceberg (until 1920’s it was called the crisphead but was renamed when California began transporting large quantities under mounds of ice to keep it cool.
• Loose leaf/Green leaf lettuce
• Romaine/Cos

Read more about Lettuce: http://seedbuzz.com/knowledge-center/article/lettuce-seeds

Organic Vs Non Organic Food

Farming has existed for nearly as long as we have. In the past, most people in the country farmed as a means of living; this was the main lifestyle before the industry and automobile age. A non-organic way of farming that has been adopted is to use methods that fight pest infestation and to produce higher quantities of crops. To solve the purpose of having larger yield certain methods were used:

The first methods are pesticides and herbicides, which are used to combat insects and weeds. However, these highly toxic chemical residues have been found in the crops themselves. The FDA has since banned these chemicals from being used. However, since some crops are imported, they come into the country, and many do contain these chemicals.

The second method used is contaminated sewage sludge. This was found to be a great idea as it made use of human waste as fertilizer for non-organic crops. At first it seemed to be a great idea, as it was cheap and easy to obtain, however, recently tests have shown that large amounts of this may contribute to chronic illnesses.

But with science and technology advancement in methods were seen, then hybridization was used.

Read more: http://seedbuzz.com/knowledge-center/article/organic-vs-non-organic-food

Diseases related to Mango

Mango is one of the most popular tropical fruits in the world and is often known as the "apple of the tropics". Mango fruits are usually eaten ripe, when they are soft and sweet. But some people prefer them unripe, when they are harder with a more sour taste. Following is a brief about the diseases of Mango plant

Powdery Mildew
The disease is caused by Oidium mangiferae Berthet. The disease affects inflorescence, leaves and young fruits. The characteristic symptom of the disease is the white superficial powdery growth of the fungus comprising a large number of conidia borne on conidiophores.

Control:

 A chemical control trial was laid out against powdery mildew caused by Oidium mangiferae on two mango varieties, namely, Alphonso and Raspuri. Ten different fungicides were sprayed 4 times at 10-day intervals with first spray given just at the time of disease appearance. The data on PDI and per cent leaves infected per bunch revealed that all the fungicides were significantly superior over control but within the treatments, baycor (0.1 per cent), bayleton (0.1 per cent) and calixin (0.1 per cent) were the most effective. The PDI in these treatments on Alphonso were 14, 15 and 19.30, respectively, as against 94 in control. While only 22 to 23 per cent leaves showed infection in these treatments, percentage of infected leaves in control was 100 per cent. Similar trends were obtained for the fungicides sprayed on Raspuri cultivars of mango.

 


Read a detailed article of diseases & control : http://seedbuzz.com/knowledge-center/article/diseases-related-to-mango