Also at Yunnan Agricultural University I got a brief glimpse of some absolutely fascinating research from the Yuanyang rice terraces, which rival those of Banaue in age and extent. Professor Wang Yunyue, who just happens to be the wife of Professor Zhu, has been studying the agriculture of the Hani people who have cultivated the terraces for at least 1300 years. Modern hybrids have been introduced from time to time, but the Hani always abandon them after a couple of years, usually because they are no longer resistant to the diseases they were brought in to combat. Instead, the Hani continue to grow their traditional landraces.
Feet of clay
That’s another one to tick off the life list. Above you see Zhu Youyong, who describes himself as a farmer. He happens also to be Distinguished Professor Zhu, President of Yunnan Agricultural College and a hero of mine.
Zhu’s name is associated with a method of growing rice that delivers higher, more stable yields with lower inputs of fungicides and a more stable harvest from year to year. Not bad for an amazingly simple idea. The problem is that traditional landraces of sticky rice, which farmers like to grow and to eat, are susceptible to fungal disease. They also have a nasty tendency to fall over, or lodge, especially when they are carrying a bountiful load of seed. Modern hybrids are disease resistant, and high-yielding, but the taste is not much to write home about. Yields are high, but prices are low. To grow the tasty traditional landraces, farmers need to be able to afford fungicides and they need to be able to overcome their tendency to lodge.
Children learn about agricultural biodiversity
Way to go Medomak High! A school biodiversity programme based on agriculture.
Maintaining diversity: an experiment
When we talk about biodiversity — including agrobiodiversity — we really mean three things at the same time: diversity among ecosystems, among species, and within species. Scientists usually study these scales separately, but can diversity at one level somehow affect diversity at another? That’s the question tackled by an experiment described last week in Science ((MRichard A. Lankau and Sharon Y. Strauss (14 September 2007) Science 317 (5844), 1561. DOI: 10.1126/science.1147455.)) and discussed by one of the authors in Scitizen (fortunately, because the full paper is behind a paywall). ((Thanks to Andy for the headsup.))
Jack Hawkes: Obituary
It has been a bit of a wait, but worth it. London’s Daily telegraph carries a fine obituary of Jack Hawkes, who died a couple of weeks ago.
Hawkes recalled that Vavilov treated him “as an equal even though I was without a paper to my name. He inspired me with his extensive knowledge, friendship and boundless enthusiasm.” Tragically, Vavilov was to be executed on trumped-up charges in 1943 after falling foul of Trofim Lysenko, his successor as president of the Lenin Academy, a man whom Hawkes found to be “a dangerous, bigoted and wholly repellent person — a politician rather than a scientist, very able to ingratiate himself with Communist Moscow”.
And there you have, in a nutshell, much of the early history of plant genetic resources.
Hawkes met Vavilov just before setting out on the British Empire Potato Collecting Expedition to South America, covering 9000 miles and collecting more than 1100 acessions. The Indiana Jones meta-narrative lives on, of course, precisely because of men like Vavilov and Hawkes who made it their business to go out there and find the treasure. To their eternal credit, they shared the loot with all who asked.