There’s a bit of an argy-bargy developing in the comments to Robert’s provocative post Inorganic farming. Anastasia raised the question of transgenics for fungal resistance, which Robert echoed. Patrick then waded in bullishly to ask why transgenics were needed, when breeder Tom Wagner “has created quite a number of potato lines totally resistant to late blight”. And that created a clamour from Robert to the effect that he couldn’t find any evidence of Wagner’s success on this front.
Two points.
First, although Patrick was perhaps too modest to say so, he has arranged for Tom Wagner to be at a meeting in Oxford, England, as part of a Greater European Tour that Tom is undertaking in the autumn. So anyone who wants to know about his selections for late blight resistance can get it straight from the horse’s mouth. And report it here, please.
Secondly, don’t panic. Scientists at the University of Dundee in Scotland and elsewhere have discovered a single gene that, they say, is the key to blight resistance. “We are really excited by the discovery of RXLR. This has provided a signature to search for proteins that are delivered inside host cells, where they may be exposed to plant defence surveillance systems,” said Professor Paul Birch, the team leader. Clearly it won’t be long before the threat of late blight is a thing of the past.
For anyone interested in seeing Tom in Oxford, two days are planned. First, Saturday, is a general meeting with presentations from several people. Tom is scheduled to speak for a few hours at the end of the day. The second day, Sunday, is a full day potato breeding workshop with Tom, and the goal of this workshop will be for him to teach us how to breed blight resistant potatoes.
If anyone wants to spend two full days discussing potato breeding with Tom, you can best do this in one of the other cities Tom plans to visit, as in most of these places will feature Tom exclusively. In particular, the weekend before in Ireland (near Cork) may be a good choice for people living in the UK or Ireland.
Need learn inorganic farming in africa, Malawi, Central Africa.
Regards,
Boldwin
Dear Baldwin
You may be lucky. A dear friend of mine has agree to share a contact. I suggest you get in touch with him, and please let us know how you get on.
Rev Fr Eston Dickson Pembamoyo MA
P.O. Box 906
Zomba
Malawi
Tel: 265 1 515 521; 265 1 951 623
Fax: 265 1 515 521
Cell: +265 8 857 927; +265 9 605 332
esjopembamoyo@gmail.com