Rotten Tomatoes? Good for Movie Ratings, Bad for Your Meals

Anthracnose is a “rotten” disease that causes tomatoes to bruise and rot. It hangs onto branches and then when it rains drips down on the tomatoes, infecting them. Farmers typically use water management strategies and fungicides to minimize the amount of anthracnose that sticks to the tomato. ARS researchers are looking for an even better solution: breeding new lines of tomatoes that are resistant to anthracnose disease. Check out the video.

Fish the Desert? Farm the Inner City? With Aquaponics, Yes!

Aquaponics is an innovative blend of aquaculture and hydroponics. Fish and plants are grown together in a system where the fish live in a tank and their waste – poop and ammonia – is broken down by bacteria into fertilizer for plants. Carl Webster, research biologist at the ARS Harry K. Dupree Stuttgart National Aquaculture Research Center in Stuttgart, AR, explained that the “wastewater” is an irrigation source that plants find nutritious and delicious in a soilless hydroponic environment. The plants associated with aquaponics typically include crops like lettuce, spinach, herbs, and even tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and peppers.

The result of this combination is a steady supply of fresh fish – channel catfish, hybrid striped bass, and tilapia – and vegetables that can be produced year-round just about anywhere, from an abandoned inner-city warehouse to a climate-controlled facility in the middle of a desert.

According to the United Nations, there will be more than 9 billion people living on our planet by 2050.

“We need to be smarter about how we grow food,” said Benjamin Beck, research leader at the ARS Aquatic Animal Health Research Unit in Auburn, AL. “Minimizing the space used to grow food and/or by growing more than one crop at the same time could help relieve pressure on land production of crops while still providing a locally grown source of food.”

Biodegradable Spray Keeps the Toxins Away

Aflatoxins are highly toxic substances produced by some species of Aspergillus fungi and can contaminate common crops such as corn, peanuts, and cotton. In high enough doses, these toxins are known to cause liver damage or cancer, ultimately threatening the health of both animals and people.

In Stoneville, MS, a team of ARS researchers developed a new bioplastic-based spray to fight aflatoxins using natural ingredients like cornstarch and beneficial microbes such as fungi and bacteria strains. The spray is relatively inexpensive, easy to apply, storable, biodegradable, and capable of significantly reducing aflatoxin contamination. 

Learn more:

• Biodegradable Spray Helps Battle Crop Pathogens
• Protecting Plants May Start with the Seed

ARS Lab Participates in Expedition Colorado

On May 5, 2022, 10 staff members from the ARS Soil Management and Sugar Beet Research Unit in Fort Collins, CO participated in Expedition Colorado, an annual field trip held at Colorado State University for 4th grade students in the Poudre School District to teach students about natural resources and conservation practices.

Approximately 1,400 students went through various stations at the Lory Student Center which included an ARS hosted workshop on different types of soils and plants.

Vertical Farming Is Moving Up

Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers. It allows farmers to grow fresh produce indoors year-round and could be part of the solution to growing crops where there is a limited availability of land and water.

It sounds like a futuristic concept, but gears are already in motion for practical implementation. Small fruiting crops like tomatoes as well as leafy greens have great potential for vertical farming production. Tomatoes can be grown hydroponically (in a nutrient-rich solution rather than in soil) in a greenhouse.

ARS plant pathologist Dr. Kai-Shu Ling and research horticulturalist Dr. James Altland discuss vertical farming in the August 2021 issue of Under the Microscope.  

If You’re Happy and You Know It, Strut Around

In recent years many non-farmers have discovered that raising chickens can be a very rewarding hobby and also has many benefits, including providing fresh eggs and nutrient-rich fertilizer for your garden. Some people even enjoy them as outdoor pets! As a matter of fact, you may even know of some friends, or neighbors who are raising chickens in their backyard and wondered if you could do the same thing.

It turns out that keeping your backyard chickens happy can be a challenge, even for the “old hand” owner. Raising healthy chickens requires planning, attention to detail, and fastidiousness when it comes to completing daily chores. So, before buying some chickens of your own, check out a few tips. 

A Halloween Mystery – A Globe-trotting Weed and the Queen of the Gypsies

Quick, when you think of Halloween what usually comes to mind? Ghosts, black cats, mysterious graveyards? Too creepy? Well, it turns out that graveyards (also known as cemeteries) can be a pretty cool place… if you’re a scientist. In fact, one cemetery in Mississippi helped scientists figure out the globe-trotting journey of a restless plant.

You see graveyards can be a good place to scout for plant species, which is what Mississippi State University graduate student Lucas Majure was doing when he found an unknown sedge (a type of weed). He asked ARS botanist Charles Bryson, who keeps an eye out for new and potentially invasive plants, to help identify the mystery plant.

After several months of searching, Dr. Bryson was able to confirm that the plant was blue sedge, Carex breviculmis, a native of Asia and Australia and previously unknown in North America. So how did this strange weed end up in Mississippi?

Read "A Mississippi Graveyard - The Perfect Place for a Plant Mystery" to learn more.