Category agricultural science
Creativity comes in many flavors
Breeding soybean is a fascinating pursuit. There is always some new angle, some new tool to deploy, some new end use to target. And I value the challenge. It never gets boring. There are folks among us who are tasked with finding new uses for things… things such as soybeans. There are new spins on […]
Nails wish they were this tough
On the 9th of November I had to stop over at the shop by the processing tower where I work. This is a tall building full of equipment to separate soybean seeds from plant debris, insect parts, and other non-seed items. Pretty industrial. Concrete and steal all around. Not the sort of environment one imagines […]
Pests parsimoniously, and persistently purloining plenty…
Not all the biodiversity on the farm is welcome right there on the farm. There is space for the weedy species over yonder by the ditch. Herbivorous insects, and in particular those choosing to chew our crops could get along nicely by the edge of the wood. White tailed deer could mosey down to the […]
Bravely Buzzing Big Brother Bee’s Bug Biodiversity Boudoir *
Over the last year we (the GP staff) have written about bees on several occasions. And you may be forgiven if you’d thought we’d run through the subject. I thought so. Now this story comes along, and we couldn’t resist. In the course of evaluating soybean germplasm we rely heavily on an instrument (NIRT – […]
Framing Fancy Floating Farms for Futuristic Food
Two recent stories about future milk sources have passed through the lens here at GP… one brought to my attention by a son, and the other through the serendipity of some online source which assumed I might be interested. Battle of the plant milks. The Guardian published a piece1 looking at the various ‘milk’ products […]
Leaves
Gentle readers. Those paying attention may have spotted a trend for timing of the publication of thoughts here over the past many months… they’ve been coming at the end of the month. And those who know me appreciate the degree of procrastination I bring to a writing commitment. I have my reasons, and they work […]
Bee ware
What ware would a bee wear if a bee could wear ware? A simple riff on the old groundhog question?* Ahh, not so fast. Apparently some Bavarians were wearing bee ware last Spring. And at least for their political aspirations – it worked. In Munich a petition was circulated last winter and spring to make sweeping […]
Making crosses
After a long day in the sun, testing one’s fortitude in the hope of making something meaningful I retire to rest so that tomorrow we might try again. At work we are making crosses. Nope, not religious icons. We are crossing different strains of soybean. Beginning the process of developing new and better varieties for […]
To Kill a Monarch
Not exactly a Harper Lee title, nor is this a story about the run up to the first World War (Archduke Franz Ferdinand was, strictly speaking, not yet a Monarch… human or butterfly). And as we shall soon see, no monarchs were actually killed in this episode, tough some habitat was deliberately destroyed. Specialists, are […]
Gulliver's Pulse 
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