How did an obscure Chinese concoction made by fermenting soybeans become one of the world’s favourite all-purpose seasonings? Read about it in The Economist, it’s fascinating. Or listen. I had no idea there were so many different types of the stuff.
The connection between wine and beer is agrobiodiversity
Sandor Katz has even had a poem written about his singular obsession:
Come on friends and lend me an ear,
I’ll explain the connection between wine and beer,
And sourdough and yogurt and miso and kraut,
What they have in common is what it’s all about.
Oh the microorganisms, Oh the microorganisms. . .
But don’t let that put you off. Katz is the author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. You can read the introduction, and various other excerpts online, as well as order the book, of course. Microbes are agricultural biodiversity too!
Pesticide manufacturers freaked
Are you worried that an organic garden on the White House grounds might cause some Americans to start eating a wide variety of chemical-free, locally grown produce? The Mid America CropLife Association, a lobbying group for agribusinesses giants, is.
Shock horror! Natural selection true!
Just fancy that. A survey of farmers and their weeds has come up with some fascinating results.
Bill Johnson, a Purdue University associate professor of weed science, said farmers who plant Roundup Ready crops and spray Roundup or glyphosate-based herbicides almost exclusively are finding that weeds have developed resistance. It is only a matter of time, Johnson said, before there are so many resistant weeds that the use of glyphosate products would become much less effective in some places.
“We have weeds that have developed resistance, including giant ragweed, which is one of the weeds that drove the adoption of Roundup,” Johnson said. “It’s a pretty major issue in the Eastern Corn Belt. That weed can cause up to 100 percent yield loss.”
So, let me get this straight. You repeatedly subject a living, reproducing organism to a particular environmental stress, and it evolves so as to adapt to that stress? Well, I’ll be.
The best part:
“Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, funded the survey. … [T]he next step is studying the differences among management strategies in grower fields to see which will slow the build-up of glyphosate resistance.”
Surviving a million Scoville units
A couple of crazy Aussies are caught on video eating naga jolokia, the hottest chilli in the world. Watch it and weep.