Consider the onion. Inducer of tears, yet essential to culinary excellence. A lowly root, yet the world’s third largest vegetable crop.
Or the soybean. Not a top-of-mind, high-tech topic.
But the onion and the soybean, despite being rooted in dirt for millenia, are prime and current examples of ag tech transfer. You are no doubt familiar with the concept and practice of cellular switches – living nanotechnology.
Researchers in New Zealand earlier this month published research (link below) of a new genome technological breakthrough that isolates the genetic markers that tell the onion when to grow the bulb.
This is vital, because plant geneticists can now develop onions that adjust to soil type and growing conditions. Scientists at the University of Otago discovered the molecular mechanism that functions on organic electricity.
Then there is the soybean, much maligned because its oil contains more fatty acids than its olive and canola cousins, and because its oil turns rancid relatively quickly.
So the US United Soybean Board-funded research scientists, successful effort to find and turn off the gene that creates fatty (oleic) acid. This had the happy side effect, the New York Times reported last month (link below), of also creating a longer shelf life.
"In essence, we’re rebuilt the profile," said the DuPont project manager. "It almost mirrors olive oil." The new soybean oil is being tested and the manufacturer said the supply is sold out for 2014.
Notice how the stories are related in high tech terms and involve designing a series of switches, if you will, that is indicative of the potential deep partnership between the plant world and the chip engineer.
Ag tech is an incredibly diverse niche, particularly in California, where more than 300 commodities are produced and shipped around the world daily. Most states and many nations have a monoculture in the fields – one, or at most, a handful of dominant crops.
Whether it’s row crops, like tomatoes and melons and asparagus, or permanent crops, like tree nuts and grapes and stone fruit – the Golden State is responsible for upwards of 90% of many of these commodities.
The need for ag tech R&D is continuous and increasing as growers strive to feed more people on the same amount of land. Yields must increase, and technology – working closely with sustainable practices – is the answer.
Thus, we are fertile ground for ag tech and high tech growing together.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-12/uoo-hor120113.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/business/in-a-bean-a-boon-to-biotech.html?_r=0
