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About 1,500 Colorado farmers are getting daily reports on irrigation
needs and pest problems "beamed up" via satellite by two commercial
firms. ARS and Colorado State University scientists worked out the
cataloging and analysis of data for this computer system. Irrigation
reports are based on a statewide, 25-station meteorological network,
administered by the scientists. All day, the network collects and
processes weather data. At night, computers deliver the information to
scientists who compile it and forward the complete package to the two
companies. In the morning, Colorado farmers can find out precisely how
much water their crops will need that day. They also get early alerts and
advice on identifying and tracking insect and disease infestations across
the state.
Water Management Research, Fort Collins, CO
Harold R. Duke, (970) 491-8230
Microorganisms discovered by ARS scientists are key ingredients in two
new commercial products registered by the Environmental Protection Agency
as the first postharvest biofungicides. Cooperative Research and
Development agreements (CRADAs) between ARS and two companies resulted in
these natural components being used to control rot in stored fruit.
ECOGEN of Langhorne, PA, made ASPIRE from the yeast Candida
oleophila, found on tomatoes. Patented by ARS and Israeli
scientists, the yeast combats postharvest rot on citrus and apples.
EcoScience of
Worcester, MA, developed BIO-SAVE 11 from Pseudomonas syringae, a
bacterium that fights rot on apples, pears and citrus. This organism was
isolated from the surface of apples and is being patented by ARS.
California's Environmental Protection Agency concurrently registered
BIO-SAVE 11 as a biofungicide. The current worldwide market postharvest
treatments is about $18 million a year for citrus and $8 million for
apples. (PATENT 5,425,941--yeast; PATENT APPLICATION
07/618,437--bacterium)
Appalachian Fruit Research
Laboratory, Kearneysville, WV
Charles L. Wilson/Wojciech J. Janisiewicz, (304) 725-3451
A new tomato just reaching some New York grocery stores is the first to
carry a gene with an ARS pedigree. A license agreement with ARS
permits DNA Plant Technology Corp., Oakland, CA, to use the gene to
prolong freshness and flavor of more than a dozen fresh fruits and
vegetables. DNAP biotechnologists designed the new Endless Summer tomato.
Earlier, ARS and University of California at Berkeley researchers found a
key gene in zucchini and tomato and retooled it to keep production of a
natural plant hormone, ethylene, turned off. Ethylene occurs naturally in
tomato and many other plants. In nature, once ethylene is turned on, it
stays on, causing fruit to ripen, but then overripen and rot. Most
commercial tomatoes are picked before ripening is completed. This
shortens the time the fruit can stay on the vine to naturally develop
sugars and acids crucial to hearty flavor. Tomatoes with the rebuilt gene
can stay on the vine longer to enhance flavor. Later, when exposed to
ethylene in the warehouse, they soften and turn red. Endless Summer
tomatoes are now being grown in Florida and test-marketed in New York.
DNAP expects to sell them throughout the country by 1997. (PATENT
APPLICATION 07/579,896)
ARS Contact: Athanasios Theologis, ARS/University of California Plant
Gene Expression Center, Albany, CA, (510) 559-5900
Patent Licenses
...To Prepeeled Fruit, Inc., of Groveland, FL, to use ARS patented
technology to prepeel citrus with commercially available food-grade
enzymes. That eliminates hand peeling and allows more precise control
of portions. Also, the process removes the bitter white portion of
grapefruit peel. Prepeeled fruit is ideal for school lunch programs and
restaurants. Prepeeled Fruit incorporated the technique in a new
processing plant it built in a small rural town in central Florida.
Recently opened with local personnel, the plant can process about 50,000
pounds--about 100,000 pieces--of fresh fruit each eight-hour shift. When
fully operational, the plant expects to hire about 100 people. (PATENT
4,284,651)
ARS Contact: Robert A. Baker, Citrus
and Subtropical Products Laboratory, Winter Haven, FL, (813)
293-4133
...To Neogen Corp., Lansing, MI, to develop a commercial kit that
detects a medication called salinomycin in food and poultry feeds.
Salinomycin is added to broiler chickens' feed to prevent coccidiosis, a
disease that costs U.S. poultry producers an estimated $450 million
annually in medication and production losses. The kit will use monoclonal
antibodies--the same basic principle as home pregnancy tests--to check
whether any salinomycin residues linger in tissues of slaughtered chickens
and whether salinomycin has been properly mixed into feeds. Salinomycin
is not a synthetic chemical, but is prepared from fermentations of natural
microorganisms. (PATENT APPLICATION 08/081,591)
ARS Contact: Larry H. Stanker, Food
Animal Protection Research Laboratory, College Station, TX, (409)
260-9306
Cooperative Research and Development Agreements
...With Defense Research Technologies, Inc. of Rockville, MD, to
improve a system for determining the number of insects in a grain sample
by detecting the insects' feeding sounds. Called ALFID (Acoustic
Location Fixing Insect Detector), the ARS-developed system captures and
analyzes the sounds insects make as they feed on the grain. But the
sensors often only detect the loudest sounds--meaning smaller insects
could be missed. Scientists want to incorporate the company's technology
that uses compressed air to amplify sound waves from even the smallest
insects. ALFID could then do a better job of picking up fainter insect
feeding sounds, especially from small larvae living inside grain
kernels.
ARS Contact: Dennis Shuman, Insect
Attractants, Behavior and Basic Biology Research Lab, Gainesville, FL,
(904) 374-5737
...With the Soil and Water Conservation Society, Ankeny, IA, to market
a computer program, known as RUSLERevised Universal Soil Loss
Equation. RUSLE increases the accuracy of predicting soil erosion by
water, based on computer analysis. ARS scientists developed the original
version in the 1960s to estimate soil erosion by water and to protect
farms and rangelands against soil loss. ARS scientists will continue to
refine the basic mathematical relationships and expand the database for
the equation. SWCS will educate and train farmers, ranchers, land-use
managers and agency personnel to help one million land users comply with
the soil conservation provisions of the 1995 Farm Bill. SWCS also is
continuing to distribute the latest input data developed by ARS and USDA's
National Resources Conservation Service. RUSLE is being used to develop
conservation compliance plans to reduce soil erosion on more than 34
million acres of farmland that will come back into production as
Conservation Reserve Program contracts expire this year.
ARS Contact: George R. Foster, National Sedimentation
Laboratory, Oxford, MS, (601) 232-2940
...With Cargill, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, to develop a newly isolated
microorganism that could help protect silage from spoiling when the silo
is opened to remove the silage for feeding dairy cows. Farmers
already inoculate silage with microorganisms to speed fermentation. But
inoculants now on the market don't protect against damaging yeast and
fungal growth when silage is exposed to air. ARS and industry scientists
isolated a strain of Lactobacillus buchneri from alfalfa silage. This
organism produces compounds that inhibit yeast and mold growth in corn
silage. An L. bucherni-based inoculant could reach the market
within
two years and cost about the same to manufacture as current silage
inoculants.
ARS Contact: Richard E. Much, U.S.
Dairy Forage Research Center, Madison, WI, (608) 264-5245
...With Summit Plant Laboratories, Inc., of Fort Collins, CO, to
develop a way to commercially produce sugarbeet clones.
Clones--genetically identical plants--would advance breeding of commercial
hybrids that resist disease or need less fertilizer. No sugarbeet clones
are commercially available. And since this plant doesn't self-pollinate,
it's difficult to obtain the large numbers of genetically similar plants
needed for research and breeding. Clones would give plant breeders and
researchers a reliable standard for comparison, year after year, to help
further the competitiveness of the domestic sugarbeet industry. Private
as well as public plant breeders would have access to the clones.
ARS Contact: Lee W. Panella, Crops Research Laboratory, Fort Collins, CO,
(970) 498-4230
...With Valmont Industries, Inc., of Valmont, NE, to develop a way to
automate the delivery of irrigation water based on plant temperature.
Such a precision farming system might pay for itself in water savings.
ARS-developed prototypes are being tested in California, Mississippi and
Texas. One example is the use of flashlight-sized, infrared thermometers,
mounted on an irrigation system that circles a field. Leaf temperatures
are read every six seconds around the clock. Red lights on the irrigation
system and at a computer console flash when the plant needs water to cool
down. This temperature-time threshold is based on the discovery by ARS
scientists that each crop has its own preferred temperature range at which
it grows best. If this prototype were automated, farmers would insert a
different computer cartridge into the computer for each crop they're
watering. Then, the computer would decide when to water.
ARS Contact: Dan Upchurch, Plant Stress and Water
Conservation Research, Lubbock, TX, (806) 746-5353
...With Pharmacognetics, Inc., of Bethesda, MD, to investigate natural
compounds from microorganisms and plants of Latin American rain forests as
potential new environmentally friendly products. Biopesticides,
pharmaceuticals and other products could emerge from the research. ARS
scientists will examine extracts from the microorganisms and plants to see
if they contain biologically active compounds. If so, they will isolate
and identify the active chemicals. For chemicals having biopesticidal
properties, the ARS scientists will focus on those that, in tiny doses,
attack specific pests. They will evaluate whether plants that make useful
compounds could become new, high-value crops for U.S. farmers. They also
will assess potential for mass-producing helpful microorganisms, through
fermentation on surplus farm crops or on agricultural wastes such as
peanut shells. Collectors of the plants and microorganisms will be mainly
botanists and ethnobotanists based in South America. They will supply
materials having known traditional uses in farming or medicine.
Pharmacognetics plans to share profits resulting from the materials with
the countries that are the sources.
ARS Contact: Hank Cutler, Natural Products Utilization Research, Athens,
GA,(706) 546-3378
...With the Electric Power Research Institute and the U.S. Geological
Survey, to develop a global warming computer model. It will predict
effects of climate change on water availability for electricity and other
uses such as drinking, irrigation and recreation. New techniques will be
developed and incorporated in a USGS modular "shell" along with various
existing computer models. The components, such as those for irrigation
and hydroelectric power scheduling, can be easily plugged in or removed
from the shell. In the project's first phase, scientists will incorporate
the ARS Snowmelt Runoff Model, which forecasts the amount of snowmelt
runoff each spring. Once this is done, the Electric Power Research
Institute can generate climate-change scenarios for power companies in
snow regions. The snowmelt model's simplicity eliminates the need to
calibrate long-term weather records. ARS also has labs in Arizona and
Idaho working with USGS to incorporate the snowmelt and other models. The
final product will use projected changes in precipitation and temperature
to predict effects on soil moisture and groundwater as well as snowmelt
runoff.
ARS Contact: Albert Rango, Hydrology Lab, Beltsville, MD
(301) 504-7490
...With Gustafson, Inc., of Plano, TX, to develop strains of a fungus
that farmers can use to prevent aflatoxin from infesting peanuts.
Certain strains of Aspergillus fungus produce aflatoxin, which--in a
bad year--has cost peanut growers millions in losses. ARS scientists
discovered and patented Aspergillus strains that do not produce
aflatoxin. They found that spreading the harmless fungus in the soil
crowds out the aflatoxin-producing strains--serving as a biological
control against contamination. Gustafson and ARS will cooperate in field
tests to develop ways to mass-produce and deliver the harmless fungi as a
commercial product peanut growers can use. (PATENT 5,292,661)
ARS Contact: Richard J. Cole, National Peanut Research
Laboratory, Dawson, GA, (912) 995-4481
Last updated: October 30, 1996
Return to: Quarterly Report
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Last Modified: 02/12/2009
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