I’ll just stand like a statue until you see it.
Yellow dog helps point. Continue reading
Pointing brown dog
Brown dog wants Gretchen to know there’s something in that blackgum:
Author Archives: John S. Quarterman
Yellow dog and raccoon
What the brown dog saw in the tree:
A raccoon. Yellow dog sees it, too: Continue reading
Brown dog tries to climb tree
Silly brown dog! Dogs can’t climb trees!
Wonder what’s in the tree?
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 July 2010.
Squirrel on Feeder
Cat squirrel eating from a bird feeder.
Or, as he calls it, breakfast.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 July 2010.
Birds in Fountain
Birds in a fountain.
Or, as they call it, their birdbath.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 July 2010.
Pesticides Linked to ADHD
Researchers tracked the pesticides’ breakdown products in children’ urine and found those with high levels were almost twice as likely to develop ADHD as those with undetectable levels.Then they try to greenwash the problem by saying to wash food before eating. Sure, that will help a bit, but many of the chemicals are inside the food, not just on it.The findings are based on data from the general U.S. population, meaning that exposure to the pesticides could be harmful even at levels commonly found in children’s environment.
“There is growing concern that these pesticides may be related to ADHD,” said researcher Marc Weisskopf of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked on the study.
“What this paper specifically highlights is that this may be true even at low concentrations.”
Organophosphates were originally developed for chemical warfare, and they are known to be toxic to the nervous system.
The problem is that by waging chemical warfare on weeds, we’re waging chemical warfare on ourselves.
-jsq
PS: Glysophate (RoundUp) is an organophosphate.
Cover Crops to prevent erosion
Sarah Uttech writes that
Cover crops reduce erosion, runoff:
Cover crops may be more effective at reducing soil erosion and runoff after maize harvest than rough tillage, according to scientists from the Université Catholique de Louvain, in collaboration with the Independent Center for the Promotion of Forage (CIPF).This study was done in Belgium, but Tifton A soil we have around here is a sandy loamy soil. And as we know from research done in Georgia, around here we also need to manage the mutant pigweed, and for that a combination of plowing and winter cover crops works best.The three-year study, supervised by Charles Bielders and conducted by Eric Laloy, measured erosion and runoff losses from silt loam and sandy loam soils in continuous silage maize cropping. The research revealed that cover crops reduced erosion by more than 94% compared to bare soil during the intercropping period. Cover crops and reduced tillage appeared equally effective in reducing runoff and soil loss between cropping cycles, despite the fact that the cover crop development was very poor.
The results were reported in the May/June 2010 edition of the Journal of Environmental Quality, a publication of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.
-jsq
HFCS and Cancer Tumors
It’s bad enough that
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) makes you fat
with resulting diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease,
and cancer.
Now Maggie Fox reports in Reuters that
Cancer cells slurp up fructose, US study finds:
Aug 2 (Reuters) – Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.
They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.
“These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation,” Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.
“They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth.”
Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.
How large amounts? Continue reading
2,4-D: Back to the Past
So, having just spent a decade breeding mutant superweeds
by pouuring pesticides on crops, what’s the recommended future
of weed science?
Pour pesticides on crops until they breed more mutant superweeds.
So what is our old friend 2,4-D, which used to be commonly used back in the 1980s? Continue reading
Managing the Seedbank by Plowing
Roundup has bred quite a few mutant weeds,
such as marestail and ragweed that haven’t yet made it to Georgia.
But the king of mutant superweeds everywhere is Palmer Amaranth: pigweed.
About pigweed, Georgia Extension weed scientist Dr. Stanley Culpepper says:
Economic survival will depend on managing the seedbank!!!!That’s on page 30 of a 46 page presentation at the 2010 Beltwide – Consultants Conference, after discussing how rapidly Roundup-Ready seeds have been adopted:
And how the value of advice on weed control during that period rapidly decreased as a direct correlation: Continue reading