Feb'08 - Gardening News

 

News of Interest to Gardeners by Wes Porter

Landscaping

·         The Toronto company that cleans dog waste from private property is operated by James Beagle, notes Joanna Pachner in the Financial Post.

·         The ‘Arrestor’ barrier can absorb enough energy to stop a 15,000-pound vehicle traveling at 50 miles an hour, according to a product review by Landscape Architecture magazine. Embedded 24 inches into a road, it rises fully in one to six seconds. Ideal for those terrified of terrorists or as a deterrent to Toronto drivers. www.probarrier.com.

·         A 25-foot-high botanical structure sprouted in New York Botanical Garden last fall. The work of  the Japanese artist Tetsunori Kawana “evoked a carnivorous triffid,” wrote Sam Serafy in last month’s issue of Landscape Architecture. It would have been inconspicuous, perhaps, says Serafy, in some primordial, Devonian-era forest.

Lawns

• The modern service economy consists of companies offload their various responsibilities and then charge you for the luxury of doing them yourself, says John Moore, host of the drive home show NewsTalk 1010 CFRB, satirically claiming his gardener, Giancarlo, recently offered him the opportunity to mow his own lawn – for $50 a month, plus a few added on charges, of course.

·         President George W. Bush a lawn jockey? A recent Reuters photograph reveals him “operating a stand-on lawnmower during a tour of Wright Manufacturing in Maryland.” Perhaps the factory supports the Democrats – they apparently failed to provide the President with protective clothing.

·         ‘Grass Station” is the ‘Word of the Year’ says Webster’s New World College Dictionary according to an item in USA Today. A pun on gas station, it “refers to a theoretical fill-up spot in the not-too-distant-future” where biofuel, some perhaps made from Gramineae, are pumped. Sounds more like a phrase to us – and from recent reports, more like a passing phase.

Trees

·         Toronto’s historic Mount Pleasant Cemetery cleared more than three-dozen trees to make room for a new visitation centre and parking lot. Almost a hundred trees will be planted in their place but this has not pleased either local residents or the city, which, although refusing permission, was overruled by the Ontario Municipal Board.

·         Toronto’s rapidly shrinking tree canopy is about to lose 44 of its oldest specimens as construction dooms them at 1001 Queen West. Strangely, city bungleaucrats fight tooth and nail to prevent private homeowners from similar action developers seem to encounter no such problems. And if they do, the OMB overrules the city. The city’s “tree advocate,” the pathetic deputy mayor Pantalone, appears oblivious.

• A major reason for declining sales of live Christmas trees is the mess caused by dropping, dry needles. The remedy is to develop a tree that is less prone to such behaviour. A solution will be sort, declares Ross Pentz, a Christmas tree specialist with the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources. Meanwhile, artificial trees continue to cause a decline in the Maritimes’ $72-million-a-year Christmas tree industry.

·         Anne Frank’s Amsterdam chestnut tree, the only thing visible other than gulls outside her hiding place from the Nazis, will stand for between five and 15 more years, despite a lethal fungus infection, say authorities in the Netherlands.

Shrubs

·         According to a press release from Prove Winners®, their new Hydrangea paniculata Pinky Winky™ is “a foolproof plant and perfect for the seasoned gardener along with beginners.” Seasoned gardener? Sounds alarmingly anthropophaginian. More at www.provenwinners.com

Roses

·         Whatever you might think of Tom Cruise, his courting ranks right up there with rosarians – a new, if controversial biography reports he sent roses daily to his date.

Flowers

·         Hosta of 2008 is  ‘Blue Mouse Ears,’ for those who wish to add this little beauty to their collections, the first miniature hosta to be so selected.

·         The Perennial of the Year has been declared Geranium ‘Rozanne,’ by the U.S. Perennial Plant Association. Not to be confused with Pelargonium, The New York Times hastens to add when it reported the news. Of course not; blue-blood readers of that august broadsheet would never confuse the two, now would they?

·         Faux flowers are no longer a faux pas, claims Canadian Florist magazine following an article by that arbiter of good taste, The Globe and Mail. Artificial water is added to arrangements from floral design experts while a “trend that’s influencing customers to go fake is the higher number of apartment and condo dwellers.” The same magazine page announced a new promotion of Ontario-grown cut flowers and potted plants by Flowers Canada (Ontario) Ltd. under the banner of ‘Pick Ontario’

·         Beat the morning blahs by having fresh flowers in the kitchen – the first place people head for after waking for their morning coffee. So suggests the Flower Promotion Organization to your friendly local florist.

Wildflowers

·         Next June may seem far away, but the Orchid Society of the Royal Botanical Gardens has a superb 2-day trip planned for an expert-guided tour of the Wild Orchids of the Bruce Peninsular. Most travels costs are included in the bargain$259 but you’ll need to come up with a deposit of $100 “as soon as possible.” For details, visit www.osrbg.ca/orchid_calendar.html.

·         The diversity of wild plant species rises in areas that are grazed and infrequently burned, and falls in frequently burned, ungrazed areas, according to Scott Collins an ecologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

• Spreading by vegetative methods is common for plants in temperate regions, notes Josef Stuefer at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands who is studying information sharing in plants. “In temperate ecosystems, 50 to 70 per cent of the herbaceous vegetation grows this way,” he says in an interview with New Scientist magazine.

Vegetables

·         The United Nations has declared 2008 as ‘The Year of the Potato’ presumably in recognition of the vast numbers of the couch species who make their habitat in that organization.

·         Overall, crops were up 16.5% from a year earlier with higher prices for grains, oilseeds, specialty crops and potatoes, reported Statistics Canada. Prices for fruits and vegetables declined however. Hmm – aren’t potatoes vegetables anymore?

• Researchers from the University of Arizona have learned that hydrogen peroxide affects the quality of fresh-cut tomatoes, reports Food Technology. Hydrogen peroxide, according to the periodical, is an “effective sanitizing tool.” Perhaps such would appeal to faux blonde Paris Hilton.

Fruit & Nuts

• “A chunk of avocado could kill your cockatiel,” Merck/Merial Manual for Pet Health: Home Edition (Merck & Co., US$22.95), also lists 27 houseplants poisonous to pets as reviewed by The New York Times

·         The Celtic Tiger expands into Central American melon farms as Dublin-based Fyffes PLC, one of Europe’s largest tropical fruit suppliers, invests in farming operations in Honduras and Guatemala, as well as purchasing 60% of the Florida-based Sol Group Marketing Co.

·         Orange Juice Prices Squeezed But Survive Crush of Bad Weather, Brokers Say, ran the headline in the Financial Post over an article on a freeze threatening Florida’s citrus crops. And you thought the puns you read here are bad?

·         “Korean Pears: Product of China” advertisement spotted in a Dominion supermarket flyer.

Beverages, Herbs & Spices

·         The ‘Herb of the Year for 2008’ is Calendula, less elegantly known as the ‘pot marigold,’ which latter may disappoint some of the young ‘uns should they attempt smoking it.

·         Nubru is the beer for those with gluten allergies or celiacs. Created by the Winnipeg-based Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre, reports CanWest News, its recipe uses maltose corn syrup and pea, lentil or bean extract to add the carbohydrates and protein other beers get from barley malt.

• Body wash creams that smell of peppermint and chocolate are being offered by Cake Beauty, a Canadian cosmetics company (www.cakebeauty.com)

·         European governments, under threat of cheap plonk imports from California, Australia and South Africa, have agreed to pay growers to tear out 175,000 hectares of vines that yield low-quality grapes.

·         Grape expectations, meanwhile, in Italy where researchers have revealed the genetic code of pinot noir grape with hopes this knowledge will lead to hardier vines and lower the price on fine wines. However, “we’re not interested in GMOs,” said Dr. Riccardo Velasco, head of genetics at the Instituto Agrario San Michele all’Adige, as they “would not be acceptable in the grape world, which is extremely conservative.”

·         Red Savina peppers at 500,000 Scoville units are said to be 65 times as hot as jalapeno peppers. Doubtless there will be heated arguments among patrons of Jake Melnick’s Corner Tap in Chicago over dishes of chicken wings coated with Red Savina for a fiery feast. But then anything that warms the Windy City in winter will be welcome.

• The active ingredient that makes Capsicum peppers hot is capsaicin, weighing in at 16,000,000 Scoville units, reports Eric Bland in New Scientist magazine. Police grade pepper spray is 5,300,000 Scoville units, commercial pepper spray 2,000,000. The supreme pepper is the Bhut jolokia grown at the University of New Mexico at 1,001,304 units – Jalapeño is a measly 5,000.

·         A new Brazilian coffee-based cream, which contains seven per cent caffeine, was tested on 99 women for 30 days. The researchers found that more than 80 per cent of the women had reduction in thigh circumference and almost 68 per cent had hip-size reductions, reports the weekly Maclean’s. Just how it works isn’t clear.

·         “One is definitely the tea and health message. Tea is all-natural and people are looking for natural with no additives. As well, it has no calories but it has antioxidants.” Louise Roberge, president of the Tea Association of Canada, quoted in Food in Canada, on increased tea sales.

·         Shipping a 750-millilter bottle of wine from Bordeaux to New York City emits 1.8 kilograms of carbon, whereas trucking one from the Napa Valley emits 2.6 kg, write Tyler Colman and Pablo Päster in a working paper posted at www.wine-economics.org and reported in the journal Science. Because most of the weight is in the glass, bigger bottles are better they note. Boxed wine is a good alternative, but local wine is the greenest of all.

Houseplants

·         Dusting indoor plants and their soil with “ordinary household pepper” keeps them free of red spiders and aphids, writes Livy Smith of Brandon, Manitoba in the current issue of Harrowsmith. Seems a lot safer than using a heating pad set on low to germinate trays of seeds, as does Alice Pascoe, Etobicoke, Ontario.

·         Jim Hole’s favourite hard-to-kill houseplants listed in the current issue of Western Living: Cast Iron Plant (Aspidistra elatior); Chinese Evergreen (Aglaonema); Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata); Peace Lily (Spathyphyllum); Dracaena “Warneckii” (Dracaena deremensis warneckei))

·         In the East, we read far too little from Alberta-based Jim Hole. Recently, he writes in Western Living, he attended a lecture by an evolutionary biologist who suggested we surround ourselves with lush jungles of houseplants as a throwback to the days when such foliage concealed us from becoming meals to monstrous sabre-tooth tigers and their brethren. So, says Hole, accept this and you understand why houseplants have a calming effect on us . . .

Seeds

·         Shares of seed producer Monsanto Inc. rose 8% on better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, reported the Financial Post.

·         “In a remnant prairie, you can find 150 to 180 species of plants,” says Deborah Marr, a plant ecologist at Indiana University in Bloomington, interviewed by Leslie Allen in Science News. But mail-order seed mixtures, typically ordered by those attempting to restore prairies, are not so diversified. Some prairie enthusiasts, passionate about making restorations as faithful as possible, have begun avoiding mail-order seed mixes, instead hand gathering wild seed only within 200 miles of their site.

For the Birds

·         Scavenging gulls have become so aggressive on Atlantic City’s famed boardwalk that a hundred-metre stretch will be shielded with light monofilament line late this spring to scare the birds off. Not content with finger foods, the gulls even land on outdoor restaurant tables to gulp oysters off the half-shell. The same tactic offers defence against pigeons elsewhere.

·         Ming Heng Ginseng Dry Foods store in Richmond, B.C. was held up by three men who made off with birds’ nests. Made by a swallow-like bird from Southeast Asia that nests in caves, they are prized by the Chinese community for making soup. Strangely, media reports failed to note that the nests are constructed of solidified bird saliva. Burp. Pardon.

·         Pigeon lofts are being planted in Paris parks. The $29,000 homes holding 200 pairs of pigeons each will allow official to sterilize their eggs while the birds are out being fed by locals, according to Yves Contasot, the deputy mayor for environmental affairs. Paris has an estimated 80,000 pigeons.

Bugs and Other Thugs

·         B.C.’s mountain pine beetle epidemic could push the province into a recession, according to a report commission by the Business Council of B.C. The report’s author, Don Wright, former B.C, deputy minister of forests, said one of the country’s rosiest economies could be at risk of a future recession, reported the Financial Post.

·         Rabid skunks don’t hibernate, residents of Brandon, Manitoba discovered. Worse yet they chase horses and, lacking any fear, charge at people. Police in the city issued a warning while their senior animal control officer shot at least two rabid skunks.

·         A few years ago, groundhogs reportedly attacked cars in a Quebec community. In South Africa hyraxes, a similar animal known there as ‘dassies,’ found the engine compartment of a luxury BMW a most acceptable substitute for their favoured caves. The driver dumped her car at a dealership, forcing the staff there to call in the Johannesburg zoo’s collection manager, according to Agençe France-Presse.

• The oldest known carnivorous fungus, unearthed in 100-million-year-old amber, apparently lassoed its nematode worm prey with sticky loops, writes Charles Q. Choi in Scientific American.

·         Slugs from Scottish pastures have been tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 by Emma L. Sproston and her colleagues at the University of Aberdeen. She has also detected the pathogen on flies while studying a cattle and sheep farm. This would seem to put a whole new complexion on the observation about the slugs in your salad days or the fly in the ointment.

·         One of the world’s most damaging agricultural pests has successfully invaded China and Australia, reports the journal Science. The sweet potato whitefly genetically distinct subtype known as the biotype B accomplished this through interfering with the mating of indigenous whitefly biotypes and increasing their own female offspring in the presence of males of other biotypes, notes USDA scientist Stuart R. Reitz.

Bees

·         New Zealand beekeeper and mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary dies

·         Male orchid bees from Latin America scout orchids for fragrances to blend into perfumes, the only animal besides humans to do so, writes Graham Lawton in the weekly New Scientist. When he finds a desirable scent, he smears a fatty substance over the surface to extract the volatile oils – just like the enfleurage method once used by perfumers, explains Lawton. A mix of as many as 40 different orchid scents are stored in special pouches on the bees’ hind legs.

·         Beeswax was an important export from the Orient to North America as far back as 300 years ago. Transported by Spanish galleons applying the Manila-Acapulco route, some didn’t make it to market. Chunks have been washing up on he Oregon coast, some of them weighing as much as 54 kilograms, reports the journal Science. A team of archaeologists, geologist and historians intends to find the ship and excavate it.

Pesticides

·         The European Space Agency talks of remotely monitoring the use of “Plant Protection Products” in Europe, according to New Scientist’s Feedback feature. Canadians might be forgiven for wondering why the Europeans are picking on the well-known Brampton-based hortic products company. Not to worry: Here’s the definition courtesy of German government’s Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety: “Plant protection products are substances which are intended to protect plants or plant products against animals, plants, micro-organisms or diseases. Substances which destroy plants, regulate growth or inhibit germination are also regarded as plant protection products.” Das ist ein ratsel.

·         Representatives from health and environmental groups call on Ontario’s Environment Minister John Gerretson at Queen’s Park in an attempt to implement a province-wide ban on pesticides for cosmetic use. Presently, Quebec is the only province to have passed such legislation.

Diseases

·         Some indications of tar spot disease of maples being sensitive to sulphur dioxide has suggested that increased incidence of the fungus in recent years is due to better pollution control. Other research appears to contradict this, however.

Fertilizer

• Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. climbed to a record in Toronto Stock Exchange with rising global demand for fertilizer to raise grains and other crops. PCS is the world’s largest manufacturer of fertilizer. Bill Doyle, CEO of Saskatchewan’s mighty Potash Corp. says that if the Chinese don’t like his price, he’ll sell the his fertilizer to someone else. “We’ll do better without them,” he said, according to the Financial Post.
• Sainik Finance & Industries Ltd., an Indian company that aims to extract 20 million tons of potash from the concession, plans a US $451-million potash mine on 10 square kilometres of land north of Lake Afrera, Ethiopia. Meanwhile, the world’s largest mining company, Melbourne, Australia-based BHP negotiates for an even bigger concession.
• Greenpeace wants a tax imposed on fertilizer, claiming overuse of such causes greenhouse gas emissions, equal to some 2.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Greenpeace’s grasp of publicity, as extensive as its record of accuracy, has been questioned over past proclamations.
• China orders the stabilization of some fertilizer prices as inflation reaches an 11-year high. Prices for oil, natural gas, electricity, public water supplies and public transportation are ordered frozen following a meeting of the State Council.

·         A new U.S. company, EcoEternity, inters its clients’ cremated remains at the base of a living tree reports Joshua Grey in Landscape Architecture. In time, the dearly departed is absorbed into the tree’s root system. The magazine headlined it as Composting Do-It-Yourself. The practice, we are told, is popular in Switzerland and Germany.

Gardeners

·         An interest in music is an indication of a suitable employee for a garden centre, notes John Drummond of Green Belt Farm, Mitchell, Ontario in last month’s Horticulture Review. “An artistic orientation, whether they like rap, classical, jazz or folk, is a good sign for many of the things we do – create beautiful gardens, set-up creative displays, speak intuitively with customers, etc.” Perhaps not though, the likes of Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty, Snoop Dogg, Foxy Browne or, well, Britney Spears.

·         Science continues to confirm, if indirectly, that gardening is good for you. A little more sunshine might help you live longer, said a report from Reuters on the same day as they also offered advice that a brisk 30-minute walk six days a week trims waistlines more effectively than dieting “even if you don’t make any dietary changes.” This season then use a push mower cut the neighbours’ lawns weekdays while the sun shines.

Gardening in the City

·         Torontonians were prostrated by a record January thaw this year. For two days, temperatures rose to levels normally to be expected the third week of April. Snow banks rapidly melted, gutters gurgled, waters in creeks and rivers rose and Torontonians became almost polite. Then Jupiter Pluvius emptied his watering can, followed by winds over 100 km/h with several trees succumbing.

• Toronto’s blue garbage boxes are to be retired – over a million of them weighing a collective 1,850 tonnes, or as much as 265 male African elephants, say city hall thingies. They suggest taxpayers keep them for tool storage, bookcases and kids’ toys. We suggest they would make really neat planters – or replace Councillor Mammoliti’s expensive office furniture and store Councillor Sandra Bussin’s bunny costumes between Easter Parades.
• The city of Toronto debates whether to raise the cost of applications for removing healthy trees from $200 to $300 when related to construction projects while other applications remain at $100.

·         Why does not Financial Post columnist and economist William Watson grow garlic in his Montreal garden? Locavores love to urge such but Watson gives half-a-dozen reasons, including he is “not good at gardening,” “if I had a garden, it would be currently covered with snow” and, anyway there is currently a skating rink there. He says he will do other things he is better at to make income to buy garlic from China where they “do garlic well and sell it for less.”

Science and the Gardener

·         The Myxomycota, or slime moulds to you, are not plants, fungi or animals but can move, navigate and avoid obstacles, notes Eva Davis in the current Newsletter of the Toronto Field Naturalists. They live inside old logs or under leaf debris on the forest floor. And, just in time for Valentines Day, they have 13 sexes – 12 of them male. Wonderful what you can learn from gardening.

·         Sprays carrying the scents of banana and mint are being applied to field crops by researchers from the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The idea is that the chemical will attract ‘bodyguard’ insects, namely predators and parasitic insects that destroy agricultural pests, writes ABC’s News in Science Dani Cooper. Then to keep them in the area, the scientists plant nectar- and pollen-producing plants for them to feed on.

·         Not just Californians but the state’s squirrels are different. Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in animal behaviour, watched ground squirrels and rock squirrels chewing up pieces of skin shed by snakes and then licking their fur to spread the smell. Her research was reported in the journal Animal Behaviour.

• If a leading Russian scientist is right, we should be preparing for global cooling, rather than warming. Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory, says the Earth has passed the heat peak and colder temperatures could commence as early as 2012.

·         Marie Stopes is known as a pioneer of sexual equality for women. But she first established herself as an outstanding paleobotanist of the early 20^th century, writes Stephanie Pain in New Scientist. Her break through discovery from plant fossils collected during an arduous trip to northern Japan revealed a mystery that even Darwin admitted had him baffled.

·         The pygmy rabbits native to Washington State are threatened with extinction. Captive breeding saved the species, but an attempt to re-introduce them into the wild was met with delight by the local coyote population. The author of the piece in National Geographic magazine is the perhaps appropriately named Helen Fields.

·         Plant roots recognize and respond to the identities of their neighbours, reports Hans de Kroon of Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands in the journal Science. However, many details of these processes and their effects remain unknown and merit full investigation, he says.

·         Burnt, drained and degraded peat bogs emit carbon dioxide equivalent to more than 10 per cent of global emissions due to fossil fuels, according to a UN Environment Programme/Wetlands International report. Two-thirds of these emissions come from Southeast Asia, primarily Indonesia, notes New Scientist.

Weather

·         “This was a Toronto winter from the 1960s or 1970s. You know what? I think global warming has stopped. We unscrewed a few too many light bulbs, and this is what we got.” Riverdale resident Patty Brown, attempting to free her snow- buried Honda, quoted in the National Post

• “This is the fits and fickles of weather in Southern Ontario. What’s happening out your back door may not be what’s happening out your front door.” David Phillips, senior climatologist, Environment Canada
• “I wouldn’t bet the family farm on this forecast,” says David Phillips, senior climatologist, Environment Canada, on the forecast by his department that the rest of winter will be warmer.

·         A strong La Niña in the tropical Pacific Ocean will limit the warming trend of the global climate for 2008, predicts the Met Office, the U.K. weather forecaster. However, claim the seers, temperatures will be a coup de soleil-inducing 0.37ºC above the 14-degree average from 1961 to 1990, doubtlessly delighting Al ‘Goebbels’ Gore.

·         Florida’s iguana lizards are an invasive species so wildlife authorities from the Sunshine State were not terribly upset at the news that during the recent cold snap, frigid iguanas were falling out of trees onto bicycle paths. Luckily for Canadians, beavers are unaffected by cold – and don’t climb into trees.

Down on the Farm

• Mr. Blackwell’s 48^th annual worst dressed women list assigned to 10^th place the little-known American actress and stand-up comedian Alison Arngrim, claiming she “looks like a 1940s fashion editor for The Farmer’s Almanac.”
• A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group, told the Empire Club in Toronto, and reported in the Financial Post.
• Crop yields around the world need to be increased close to what is achieved in the state of Illinois, which produces more than 200 corn bushels an acre compared with an average 30 bushels an acre in the rest of the world says Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group  “That will be done with more fertilizer, with genetically modified seeds, and with advanced machinery and technology.”
• Australian scientists are considering transplanting special bacteria from kangaroo guts into cows and sheep, since the herbivore kangaroos don’t flatulate while cows and sheep do, reports Maclean’s magazine. If it doesn’t work on the sheep, perhaps instead the scientists will discover they’ve created woolly jumpers.

·         The stylized wheat sheaf that has symbolized Saskatchewan for over three decades will remain. Despite first embracing the scything of the symbol, Deputy Premier Ken Krawetz did a rapid about face when his proposal received concerted outrage by the province’s residents.

• Indian farmers sowed wheat on 24.93 million hectares (61.6 million acres) late last year, down from 26.33 million hectares in 2006, reports Bloomberg News. Meanwhile the Indian government purchases internationally and stockpiles 1.79 million tons of wheat.
• Mexicans protest the opening of their country’s market to U.S. beans, corn, milk and sugar as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
• Per capita food production in sub-Sahara Africa is at last rising, notes David Biello in Scientific American. According to the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008, agricultural growth there “has accelerated from 2.3 per cent per year in the 1980s to 3.3 per cent per year between 2000 and 2005.”

·         Since prices remain very strong for commodities like corn and soybean, it is easier for farmers to justify paying more for such inputs as fertilizer and seeds, writes Peter Koven in the Financial Post. That has allowed the producers to push through much higher prices. The farmers have been able to raise prices because of soaring demand in developing countries such as China, where the growing middle class is changing its dietary habits.

• Ontario’s remaining 1,600 tobacco farmers want the $100-million a year for the next 10 years to bail them out of the business, all the while claiming that other cash crops are unsuited to their sandy soils, according to NOW weekly magazine. Asparagus and ginseng have found small niche markets though – and similar soils in East Toronto less than a century ago supported the market gardens of the city.

Genetic Modification

·         Genetically modified rice illegally entered Canada and was discovered in a Vancouver store. Imported by Overwaitea Foods and bagged by Western Family, it is not a safety threat, said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), doubtlessly to the vast disappointment of Greenpeace whose vigilance is proverbial.

Environment

• “I was asked at a lecture by a young woman about what she could do and I told her to stop admiring young men in Ferraris. What I was saying is that you have got to admire people who are conserving energy and not those willfully using it.” Sir David King, U.K.’s Chief Scientific Adviser who retires at the end of the year.
• Shell is to become the first major oil company to produce diesel fuel from marine algae, reports New Scientist. Shell plans to begin construction of a pilot plant in Hawaii immediately, according to the London, U.K.-based weekly
• Passengers on Hong-Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and its sister airline, Dragonair, can now choose to use frequent flyer miles, or cash, to invest in a wind farm or other green projects in mainland China that would offset the amount of carbon released by the flight. From those friendly folk who brought you Asian long-horned beetle, lead-painted toys and poisoned pet food.
• Alleviate your guilty conscious and send “ethical presents” to the Third World is the latest recommendation of international charities, reports the Financial Post. Beehives, buckets of worms for fertilizer “or an elephant-repelling chilli hedge” are amongst the “gifts” suggested.
• The algae Didymosphenia geminata is reported running rampant in Alberta rivers, resounding with true western distain to the local name of ‘rock snot.’
• Biofuels do more harm than good to the environment, the U.K. Parliament’s environmental audit committee says, describing Britain’s current biofuels policy as “reckless.”
• “Global Gardening” is what Peter Read calls his proposal to grow biomass fuels for a quarter-century on an area equivalent to the combined size of France and Germany. An economist at Massey University’s Centre for Energy Research in Palmerston North, New Zealand, Read proposes this step to “manage carbon levels in the atmosphere,” as reported in the journal Nature. Some “gardening.”
• Many biofuels are associated with lower greenhouse-gas emissions but have greater aggregate environmental costs than gasoline, say Jörn P. W. Scharlemann and William F. Laurence in the journal Science. Also, in the British weekly New Scientist, Fred Pierce and Peter Aldhous say that instead of saving the world from a baking future, switching to biofuels could do more harm than good.
• Beer is becoming more environmentally friendly to make, thanks to an idea, called PDX, comes from Pursuit Dynamics of Huntingdon, U.K., reports New Scientist. The technique slashes both the energy required to brew beer and the amount of waste produced in the process. It also results in substantial savings for the brewers. “When brewing’s finance chiefs get a sniff of the savings this will take off,” predicts one technical director.
• Independent studies have confirmed early government investigations that mercury, lead and arsenic are tainting the front lawns, backyards, sandboxes and vegetable gardens in Flin Flon, Manitoba, the Winnipeg Free Press reports. The pollution comes from the smelter run by HudBay Minerals Inc. Say – isn’t that the place Health Canada raises its medical marijuana?

Show Biz

·         Britain’s jolly old Spice Girls designate Toronto as ‘Spice City’ for two allegedly “special shows.” The Germans word is Zeutgeldundauskunftmittelsvernichtung or a complete waste of time, money and resources. Spices flourish in warm zones, herbs in more temperate climes such as ours.

·         ‘Sage Florence’ is the name of the bouncing baby girl born to Aussie actress Toni Collette and her hubby, musician Dave Golafassi. We kid you not. It only remains to note that, according to Professor Paul Hiebert (1947), Thadeus T. Thurnow, last of a long line of Thurnows (originally Thurnips), was a figure in the community of Willows, Sask. He was called ‘Old Sage’ is a tribute as much to the profundity of his wisdom as to his herbal remedies, notes Hiebert.

Law and the Gardener

·         The illegal drug khat (Catha edulis), used almost exclusively by Canada’s Somali immigrant community, may be financing terrorist activities, according to a federal government report obtained by the National Post. The RCMP has seized no less than 14 tonnes of the leafy shrub in the past year, most of it from high flyers at Toronto International Airport.

·         U.S. General Dan McNeill in charge of NATO’s Afghanistan mission said yesterday he expects another year of “explosive growth” in the country’s poppy fields, a harvest the insurgents will then turn into weapons for use against Afghan and NATO troops. NATO commanders in Europe have told him to step up the counter-narcotics fight this year.

·         A class-action proceeding initiated by Lee Valley Tools Ltd. against Canada Post has been given the go-ahead in an Ontario court ruling. The Ottawa-based gardening and woodworking tool company claims the crown corporation has been overestimating shipping charges. Lee Tools pays Canada Post $7-million a year for its delivery services and the court ruling notes there are 57,000 similar commercial clients.

·         Pepper spray backfired on three Montreal miscreants using such while attempting an apartment invasion. According to police, the trio were overcome and fled empty- handed.

·         California’s Leaf Greens Marketing Agreement Programs to keep salads germfree have raised wildlife and conservation concerns, warns Janet Raloff in Science News. Made virtually mandatory in the wake of the late summer 2006 great spinach poisoning, the rules are necessary but, as Melanie Beretti says must be accomplished, by neither “sacrificing food safety for the environment nor compromising the environment for food safety.”

Business

·         McCain Foods Ltd., the New Brunswick-based spud specialist, has announced it will build a $150-million processing plant somewhere in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, exactly where it is not saying. Local land promoters are keeping their eyes peeled.

·         Composters made from used oak wine barrels are the latest offering from TerraCycle, the worm poop people (www.terracycle.net). Plastic, not being organic, just doesn’t cut the mustard.

·         Congratulations are in order to wholesale Dutch bulb, perennial, annual, roses, fruit and vegetable supplier Vanhof & Blokker, horticultural specialists since 1868, so this year celebrating their 140^th anniversary.

·         Technology advances: pre-washed lettuce and pre-sliced apples hit the market.

·         CanGro Foods, who produce canned and bottled produce under the Aylmer, Del Monte and Ideal names, plan to close or sell two Ontario plants, in Exeter and St. Davids, by 31 March putting almost 300 full-time employees and an unknown number seasonal workers out of work.

·         Slowdowns in Canadian forestry caused 54 mills to close across the country in the first 9 months of 2007, with 6,559 forestry workers laid off, reports CanWest News.

• GM announces it has invested in Coskata Inc., a start-up biofuel company in Warrenville, Illinois. Despite apparently yet to produce a single litre of non-corn-based ethanol, Coskata plans a pilot plant later this year to produce ethanol from crop waste, wood chips, scrap plastic, rubber, and even municipal garbage.
• Late this month biofuel, perhaps from algae, will help fly a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam on a test flight. Not exactly transatlantic but will ensure the Boeing doesn’t go bong.

·         Tree Brewing, a Kelowna, B.C. craft brewery, has increased it sales 41 per cent from the same time last year, according to Food in Canada magazine. Despite the name, it presumably uses traditional ingredients.

Travel

·         “The presumption that readers have the intellectual curiosity of a squirrel monkey and the moral range of an Amish yam farmer has worn thin.” Chuck Thompson: Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer.

Health

• The buttery chemical derived from coconut oil that supplies the oomph to microwave popcorn has finally been withdrawn by the four biggest U.S. makers of the snack. Workers in the plants producing the popcorn had been afflicted with serious lung ailments.
• Cannabis smokers beware: puff for puff, smoke from the plant significantly more chemicals and carcinogens than tobacco, warns Jason Palmer in the British weekly New Scientist. Where did the research to back this claim originate? David Moir of Health Canada and his colleagues, who published their results on Chemical Research in Toxicology.
• Chocolate every day may not be such a good idea for older women. An Australian study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition notes these women have weaker, thinner bones than those who indulge less frequently. However, chocolate is still indicated as good for health of the heart.
• Some clays are powerful antimicrobial agents capable of killing Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and other virulent bacteria, notes USA Today. One is to be used to treat hospital HEPA filters.
• Since September, the results of nearly 300 new nutritional studies have been distributed through the press-release service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, wrote CanWest News’ Alex Hutchinson early in January. But, he notes, history suggests that not all these “breakthroughs” will still be considered good advice a decade from now.
• An experimental diet pill based on marijuana research has passed the second phase of testing. Merek’s ‘taranabant’ successfully suppresses appetite, causing weight losses of 6 to 12 pounds over 12 weeks. Alas, the side effects include anxiety, nausea, vomiting and frequent bowel movements, according to the study.
• We experience chili peppers as hot because they activate an enzyme called c-Kit, reports New Scientist magazine. This could lead to the development of a new class of painkillers that work by blocking the enzyme.
• Yet another advantage to daily drinking at least five cups of green tea: it may reduce the risk of advanced prostate cancer, according to a study by researchers at Japan’s National Cancer Center published recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
• Eight Western science combined studies conclude that tea drinking does not reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. However, a single Chinese study indicates the opposite. Researchers conclude that green tea, the common beverage of China, may have a very different chemical composition than the black tea commonly drunk in the West. Does anybody still drink the stuff because it tastes good?
• A Health Canada advisory claims some products distributed by Selkirk-based natural health company Wild Vineyard “contain heavy metal contamination with substances such as lead, and inappropriate labelling.”
• Deciphering the pharaoh’s pharmaceuticals from ancient papyri is no easy task. Translators are often left to make educated guesses as what the plant species are. So researcher Jackie Campbell at the U.K.’s University of Manchester turned to science – and now claims that the Egyptians and not the Greeks are the true fathers of pharmacology.

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