Novel Open Source Seed Pledge aims to keep new vegetable and grain varieties free for all

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe

Novel Open Source Seed Pledge aims to keep new vegetable and grain varieties free for all

April 15, 2014 by Nicole Miller

Jack Kloppenburg (left), professor in the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, Irwin Goldman (center), chair of the Department of Horticulture, and Claire Luby (right), graduate student in the UW’s Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics program, fill envelopes with non-patented seeds in the Horticulture office in Moore Hall.

Photo: Bryce Richter

This week, scientists, farmers and sustainable food systems advocates will gather on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to celebrate an unusual group of honored guests: 29 new varieties of broccoli, celery, kale, quinoa and other vegetables and grains that are being publicly released using a novel form of ownership agreement known as the Open Source Seed Pledge.

The pledge, which was developed through a UW-Madison-led effort known as the Open Source Seed Initiative, is designed to keep the new seeds free for all people to grow, breed and share for perpetuity, with the goal of protecting the plants from patents and other restrictions down the line.

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Plant Breeders Release First ‘Open Source Seeds’

Posted on April 18, 2014 by hanshowe

NPR version… some organic seed outfits are making these seeds available; unfortunately NPR doesn’t name them or provide any info on suppliers… which is typical of them

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Invite pollinators to your neighborhood …

Posted on April 5, 2014 by hanshowe

Invite pollinators to your neighborhood by planting a pollinator friendly habitat in your garden, farm, school, park or just about anywhere!

Starting on Page 16 of the planting guides you can find lists of plant names that will attract pollinators and help you build beautiful pollinator habitat!

Print these lists and bring them to your local native plant, garden center or nursery

These guides were funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the C.S. Fund, the Plant Conservation Alliance, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management with oversight by the Pollinator Partnership, in support of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign. To learn more about why planting for pollinators is important, click here.

Selecting Plants for Pollinators http://www.pollinator.org/guides.htm
Our ecoregional planting guides are tailored to specific areas of the U.S. You can find out which ecoregion you live in by entering your zip code at link above.

Filed under: Agriculture, Bees, Birds, Critters, Food, Garden, Green, Insects, Nature, Plants | Leave a comment »

New method may revolutionize maple syrup industry U Vermont

Posted on January 21, 2014 by hanshowe

http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=news&storyID=17209
Remaking Maple: New method may revolutionize maple syrup industry
By Joshua E. Brown

Tim Perkins and Abby van den Berg photo

Last year, the value of Vermont maple syrup was more than $26 million. UVM professors Abby van den Berg and Tim Perkins have revealed an invention that can yield vastly more syrup per acre than what producers currently get from the forest. It starts by cutting the top off a maple sapling. (Photo: Sally McCay)

A new sap collecting technique invented at the University of Vermont. It could work for maple–or walnut, birch, or even palm trees. (Photo: Sally McCay)

Four years ago, Tim Perkins and Abby van den Berg cut the top off a maple tree. As researchers at the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center, they wanted to learn more about sap flow.

Instead, they discovered an entirely new way to make maple syrup. “It’s revolutionary in some ways,” says Perkins.

Their new technique uses tightly spaced plantations of chest-high sugar-maple saplings. These could be single stems with a portion — or all — of the crown removed. Or they could be multiple-stemmed maples, where one stem per tree can be cut each year. Either way, the cut stem is covered with a sealed plastic bag. Under the bag, the sap flows out of the stump under vacuum pressure and into a tube. Voilà, huge quantities of sap.

In short, these plantations can allow maple syrup production in a farm field.

Typically, a traditional sugarbush produces about 40 gallons of maple syrup per acre of forest by tapping, perhaps, 80 mature trees. With this new method, the UVM researchers estimate that producers could get more than 400 gallons of syrup per acre drawing from about 6,000 saplings.

The new technique has the potential to enhance business for existing syrup producers, the researchers think, and defend Vermont’s maple industry from threats that range from climate change to spiking land costs to Asian long-horned beetles.