Posted on 08/24/2011 11:00:58 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Reading this, especially with the climate doom opening paragraph, I’m left with the idea that it will be used as a tool to limit modern farming practices by going after yield enhancing chemical fertilzers.
…it might even be feasible to use the knowledge in order to prevent nitrous oxide from being released into the atmosphere, for example, by additives in fertilizers that preserve the functioning of N2O-reductase…
From the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Nature: How the N2O Greenhouse Gas Is Decomposed
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a harmful climate gas. Its effect as a greenhouse gas is 300 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide destroys the ozone layer. In industrial agriculture, it is generated on excessively fertilized fields when microorganisms decompose nitrate fertilizers. Decomposition of nitrous oxide frequently is incomplete and strongly depends on environmental conditions. Researchers from Freiburg, Constance, and KIT have now identified the structure of the enzyme that decomposes nitrous oxide and the decomposition mechanism. Their results are published in the Nature journal (AOP; DOI:10.1038/nature10332).
The study demonstrated that the N2O-reductase enzyme possesses active centers made up of four copper atoms and two sulfur atoms. “Surprisingly, we found that microbiologists all over the world have assumed an incorrect structure so far,” explains Professor Oliver Einsle, group leader at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Freiburg. Scientists have assumed a single sulfur atom only and have not been able to completely identify the nitrous oxide decomposition mechanism. Based on the new data, the reaction sequence of the enzyme can be modeled much better. Future investigations are to provide further details and help understand which influence environmental conditions have on the process.
“It was of decisive importance that all steps of our investigation were executed in the absence of air oxygen,“ emphasizes Walter G. Zumft, retired professor of Karlsruher Institute of Technology. In contact with oxygen, parts of the enzyme react and the enzyme changes its structure. Together with Dr. Anja Pomowski from the University of Freiburg, the bacteria were cultivated under an oxygen-free atmosphere, the enzymes were isolated on a large scale, crystallized, and the structure was analyzed using X-rays. The team of four authors was completed by Professor Peter Kroneck from the University of Constance.
“The current study provides interesting and complementary insight into the nitrogen cycle,” says Dr. Ralf Kiese from the KIT Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research. Nitrous oxide and nitrogen production on fields, pastures, and in forests depends on a multitude of often opposing effects. Last year, a KIT study demonstrated that animal husbandry may lead to less nitrous oxide unter certain conditions (doi:10.1038/nature08931).
Detailed knowledge of microbial processes and their dependence on environmental conditions might help to better model the nitrous oxide contribution to the climate. In the long term, it might even be feasible to use the knowledge in order to prevent nitrous oxide from being released into the atmosphere, for example, by additives in fertilizers that preserve the functioning of N2O-reductase or by optimized processes in sewage treatment plants.
KIT press releases on other studies relating to nitrous oxide:
“Greenhouse Gases from Forest Soils”
http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2011_6446.php
”Cattle Reduce Nitrous Oxide Emissions“
http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2010_883.php
Homepage of the working group of Professor Einsle at the University of Freiburg: http://portal.uni-freiburg.de/xray.
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a public corporation according to the legislation of the state of Baden-Württemberg. It fulfills the mission of a university and the mission of a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT focuses on a knowledge triangle that links the tasks of research, teaching, and innovation.
fyi
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Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a harmful climate gas. Its effect as a greenhouse gas is 300 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide.
Interestingly enough there is a parallel push to destroy heritage seed lines making us dependent on hybrid seed. And Hybrid seed you cannot replant, you have to buy every year. Heritage seeds sprout true, save a little seed and your ready for next year.
They not only want to control the money, but the food, and are obviously building in the ability to shut it down when they want. So the bottom line is this, redistribution is not about making poor people wealthy, its about making wealthy people poor.
The seeds from a plant grown from hybrid seed will grow just fine. They won’t have exactly the same properties, perhaps. The only reason you “can’t” plant them is that the government has granted a monopoly to a company that did the hybridization, and for some reason extended it to seeds from hybrid plants, even though they don’t breed true and are therefore not the patented strain.
(Any bets on how long someone will take to chime in that patents are “property”, not state-granted monopolies? I’m guessing someone shows up to object to my post within the next ten posts to the thread.)
If you give yourself a title and are part of a institute, ideally an international one, you could tell everyone that the earth is warming and the “critically thinking” lemmings in education and media will believe you.
Incorrect.
I do not use artificial fertilizer and my hybrids do just fine.
My parents do not and their hybrids do just fine.
Too soon to tell with my brother's place but I doubt it will be any different there.
“Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a harmful climate gas. Its effect as a greenhouse gas is 300 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide.”
The phrasing of this kind of statement can be very misleading. Implicit that CO2 is already terrible, the addition of N2O would be 300X worse. But back to the basics, CO2 absorbs radiation in the infrared as does N2O, and is therefore described as a ‘greenhouse’ gas. But CO2 is not a sponge that sops up all the radiation that nears it. In reality, it absorbs in specific wavelengths of the infrared, and this in fact is how it is detected/measured in the atmosphere. It has an absorbency signature so to speak. The energy of the radiation absorbed excites the molecule momentarily after which it re-emits that energy, albeit at a different wavelength or loses it by conduction in returning to equilibrium. Once this is factored in, the concentrations of both gases in the atmosphere need to be included in the discussion.
Hmmmm
Given the oligarchy’s values and goals . . .
I thought they were going to grind up all the
“human eaters” / ‘excess’ population
and spread them on the grown to return North America to one vast Natural Park area for their huge playground
only slightly /sarc
I have planted a hybrid, greenhouse tomato, Campari, from saved seed. Not only did every seed germinate and grow well, every single plant is bearing loads tomatoes indistinguishable from purchased Camparis.
I am told that some other varieties of cherry tomato also grow true from saved seed.
I have also saved seed from an organic mini sweet red pepper bought in the supermarket. Same results: hardy plants that bear well and the fruit is exactly the same as the parent.
While this likely isn’t so with row crops, I wonder how many other varieties of garden vegetables will grow just fine and remain true from saved seed?
As for the government and monopolies, I know I am not the only hobby gardener doing this. There are photos on GardenWeb of Campari plants going back to 2005 or earlier. I also pass out starts every Spring and encourage the recipients to save seeds, start them and share, so there are eventually so many plants out there, neither the government nor the patent holder could ever know nor do anything about it.
For those plants that revert, I have long been curious as to how many generations it would take, w/cross pollination of the reverts, to get back to the original hybrid? I do know there is a group called The Tomato Project that is experimenting to produce more varieties of dwarf and miniature tomato plants. IIRC, I don’t think they are starting out with only open-pollinated varieties.
Damn....I missed that one too!
I was not talking about home gardens. There you can burn the soil for a few years till it becomes a problem. I was talking about commercial farming for food production from a nation wide perspective. Anti-famine as you will.
If you doubt me take two observations on your own. Go check out commercial soil that has been farmed with hybrids and chemical fertilizers for years. Look at what happens to the soil. It has become desertified. Plant a seed in a pot of that soil and a pot of your home soil and water it and see the difference. Put cow manure on both. The soil from the commercial farm has no life in it, there are no natural bacteria to break the poop down to food for the plant. The poop will not degrade, it will just dry up and blow away. Note also that the seedlings will be quite different. The one from your soil will do much better.
A Hybrid seed is much faster growing and tries to produce more fruit from the same soil. It is hard to support Hybrid seeds in an Organic garden without intensive methods of composting and levels of fertilization that cannot be done on a large scale level.
Now for a second experiment. Plant two tomatoe plants in your garden, and do not fertilize either. One Hybrid and one a Heritage seed. Where in fertile soil the Hybrid will out preform a Heritage seed hands down, in normal soil the Heritage will equal or excel in production (depending on the base fertility) and this is more telling. At the end of the year, which soil is healthier? Just cut the tomatoes off at the root level and let those plots go to weeds. The WEEDS will be healthier in the Heritage spot simply because the soil has been degraded by the Hybrid's over feeding from the soil.
It is a real lesson on gardening. A serious gardener raises soil, the soil raises the garden. Hybrids eat more from the soil than can be replaced by a green off season crop. So over time your top soil level will slowly reduce itself until the soil will no longer support anything but weeds.
No they won't have the same properties. Sometimes the seeds are just plain infertile, but at best the fruit randomly scrambles back to a non-optimal generation. A Heritage seed will produce the same fruit, generation after generation, a Hybrid will never produce a fruit comparable to its original cross and will produce, if it produces at all a inferior product to a Heritage seed.
A Jackass is a Hybrid horse/donkey. It is stronger than a horse and larger than a donkey. It is also sterile. Plants run the same way. Most times they are not sterile, but a lot of time you might wish they were.
To top it off, a hybrid seed is optimized for commercial farming, they look great, you can pick them early and they hold up under shipping well. They produce far more fruit than a normal plant and some times, around 6 or 7 on the list of desirableness is the heading taste. Never is nutrition on the list because our science is not advanced enough to understand nutrition.
A hybrid for hundreds of years has been selected to be healthy, disease resistant, reliable, tasty and easy to raise for food. That is why Heritage seeds HANDS DOWN taste better and smell better than Hybrids. Cross breeding plants works good on a short term view, but in the long run, bites ya on the rear.
It is now suspected that the trace proteins of organic soil has a lot to do with nutrition, not just smell and taste. And why not? The components that make up smell and taste are highly complex proteins. Hard to synthesize from NPK fertilizer. It is suspected that is why chemically grown foods loose their taste after a few generations of soil usage with chemicals.
So for those who think of gardening as a way to survive the depression or the end of the world, you should NOT use Hybrid seeds.
Because there has been a garden in that area since 1965.
You have been gardening since 1965 and you don’t fertilize? Thats amazing! Count yourself very lucky.
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