Transgenic maize engineered to express insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) has become widely adopted in U.S. agriculture. In 2009, Bt maize was planted on more than ...22.2 million hectares, constituting 63% of the U.S. crop. Using statistical analysis of per capita growth rate estimates, we found that areawide suppression of the primary pest Ostrinia nubilalis (European corn borer) is associated with Bt maize use. Cumulative benefits over 14 years are an estimated $3.2 billion for maize growers in Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, with more than $2.4 billion of this total accruing to non-Bt maize growers. Comparable estimates for Iowa and Nebraska are $3.6 billion in total, with $1.9 billion for non-Bt maize growers. These results affirm theoretical predictions of pest population suppression and highlight economic incentives for growers to maintain non-Bt maize refugia for sustainable insect resistance management.
The efficacy of two systemic, insecticidal seed treatments, imidacloprid (Gaucho
®) and thiamethoxam (Cruiser
®), were evaluated for control of the bean leaf beetle,
Cerotoma trifurcata (Forster), on ...early-growth-stage snap beans,
Phaseolus vulgaris L., over multiple planting dates (2002–2003) in southern Minnesota, US. A new foliar damage rating scale was developed for quantifying the efficacy of control tactics for protecting snap beans from
C. trifurcata feeding. Both insecticide seed treatments provided a high level of
C. trifurcata control, as measured by significant differences in foliar damage ratings, compared to the untreated plots, for all planting dates tested. Foliar damage ratings for thiamethoxam and imidacloprid were generally superior to the chlorpyrifos (Lorsban
®) seed treatment when
C. trifurcata pressure was high. In addition, for early planting dates, some seed treatments were as effective as foliar applications of bifenthrin (Capture
®) for protecting yield. Based on economic risk analysis for eight planting dates, over 2 years, thiamethoxam appeared to be the most consistent seed treatment for
C. trifurcata control. This conclusion is based on thiamethoxam providing significant improvements in damage ratings compared to chlorpyrifos, the highest economic returns per hectare, and economic variability levels (as measured by SD of adjusted gross returns) that were similar to those of imidacloprid and chlorpyrifos. The overall performance of thiamethoxam and imidacloprid for snap beans is discussed within the context of improving
C. trifurcata management programs for growers in the Midwestern US.
Ambient Intelligence Weber, Werner; Aarts., Emile; Rabaey, Jan M
2005, 2006-01-15
eBook
Ambient intelligence is the vision of a technology that will become invisibly embedded in our natural surroundings, present whenever we need it, enabled by simple and effortless interactions, attuned ...to all our senses, adaptive to users and context-sensitive, and autonomous. High-quality information access and personalized content must be available to everybody, anywhere, and at any time. This book addresses ambient intelligence used to support human contacts and accompany an individual's path through the complicated modern world. From the technical standpoint, distributed electronic intelligence is addressed as hardware vanishing into the background. Devices used for ambient intelligence are small, low-power, low weight, and (very importantly) low-cost, they collaborate or interact with each other, and they are redundant and error-tolerant. This means that the failure of one device will not cause failure of the whole system. Since wired connections often do not exist, radio methods will play an important role for data transfer. This book addresses various aspects of ambient intelligence, from applications that are imminent since they use essentially existing technologies, to ambitious ideas whose realization is still far away, due to major unsolved technical challenges.
One of the main challenges for the 21st century is to balance the increasing demand for high-quality proteins while mitigating environmental impacts. In particular, cropland-based production of ...protein-rich animal feed for livestock rearing results in large-scale agricultural land-expansion, nitrogen pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Here we propose and analyze the long-term potential of alternative animal feed supply routes based on industrial production of microbial proteins (MP). Our analysis reveals that by 2050, MP can replace, depending on socio-economic development and MP production pathways, between 10–19% of conventional crop-based animal feed protein demand. As a result, global cropland area, global nitrogen losses from croplands and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions can be decreased by 6% (0–13%), 8% (−3–8%), and 7% (−6–9%), respectively. Interestingly, the technology to industrially produce MP at competitive costs is directly accessible for implementation and has the potential to cause a major structural change in the agro-food system.
Field experiments to characterize the sensitivity of potatoes, lima beans, and snap beans to soil residues of flumetsulam plus clopyralid applied to maize the previous year were conducted in ...1999/2000 at three sites in the Midwestern USA. Flumetsulam plus clopyralid was applied post-emergence to maize in 1999 at 144, 288, and 576
g
ai/ha. Selected vegetable crops were planted in 2000. Soil residues of flumetsulam plus clopyralid resulted in greater injury to potatoes planted the following year than to lima beans or snap beans. Severe potato injury was observed at Fremont, OH, ranging from 11% to 21% at 7 days after emergence (DAE) showing a dose response. Potato injury was greatest at the site with low soil pH and least precipitation between herbicide application and vegetable crop planting. Lima beans tolerated flumetsulam plus clopyralid soil residues and were not injured at any of the test sites. Snap beans were injured slightly at one of the four test sites at normal use doses. These results suggest that lima and snap beans, but not potatoes, can tolerate soil residues of flumetsulam and clopyralid 365 days after application to maize.
Technology advances have made it conceivable to build and deploy dense wireless networks of heterogeneous nodes collecting and disseminating wide ranges of environmental data. Applications of such ...sensor and monitoring networks include smart homes equipped with security, identification, and personalization systems; intelligent assembly systems; warehouse inventory control; interactive learning toys; and disaster mitigation. The opportunities emerging from this technology give rise to new definitions of distributed computing and the user interface. Crucial to the success of these ubiquitous networks is the availability of small, lightweight, low-cost network elements, which the authors call PicoNodes. The authors present a configurable architecture that enables these opportunities to be efficiently realized in silicon. They believe that this energy-conscious system design and implementation methodology will lead to radio nodes that are two orders of magnitude more efficient than existing solutions.
With industrial agriculture increasingly challenging our ecological limits, alternative food production routes such as microbial protein (MP) production are receiving renewed interest. Among the ...multiple substrates so far evaluated for MP production, renewable bioethanol (EtOH) is still underexplored. Therefore, the present study investigated the cultivation of five microorganisms (2 bacteria, 3 yeasts) under carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and dual C-N-limiting conditions (molar C/N ratios of 5, 60, and 20, respectively) to evaluate the production (specific growth rate, protein and biomass yield, production cost) as well as the nutritional characteristics (protein and carbohydrate content, amino acid AA profile) of MP production from bioethanol. Under C-limiting conditions, all the selected microorganisms showed a favorable AA profile for human nutrition (average AA score of 1.5 or higher), with a negative correlation between protein content and growth rate. Maximal biomass yields were achieved under conditions where no extracellular acetate was produced. Cyberlindnera saturnus and Wickerhamomyces anomalus displayed remarkably high biomass yields (0.40 to 0.82 g cell dry weight CDW/g EtOH
), which was reflected in the lowest estimated biomass production costs when cultivated with a C/N ratio of 20. Finally, when the production cost was evaluated on a protein basis, Corynebacterium glutamicum grown under C-limiting conditions showed the most promising economic outlook.
The global protein demand is rapidly increasing at rates that cannot be sustained, with projections showing 78% increased global protein needs by 2050 (361 compared to 202 million ton
/year in 2017). In the absence of dedicated mitigation strategies, the environmental effects of our current food production system (relying on agriculture) are expected to surpass the planetary boundaries-the safe operating space for humanity-by 2050. Here, we illustrate the potential of bioethanol-renewable ethanol produced from side streams-as a main resource for the production of microbial protein, a radically different food production strategy in comparison to traditional agriculture, with the potential to be more sustainable. This study unravels the kinetic, productive, and nutritional potential for microbial protein production from bioethanol using the bacteria Methylorubrum extorquens and Corynebacterium glutamicum and the yeasts
Cyberlindnera saturnus, and Metschnikowia pulcherrima, setting the scene for microbial protein production from renewable ethanol.
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Alternative protein sources such as microbial protein (MP) are currently considered to alleviate the burden that food production exerts on the environment. Even though MP production ...is highly efficient in land and nutrient utilization, their carbon footprint should be improved. Here we propose the use of CCU as a driver for heterotrophic MP production. By comparing different MP production routes starting from liquid substrates derived from CO2 (i.e., formate, acetate, methanol, and ethanol) and their respective metabolic pathways, the potential of this concept as a carbon–neutral food or feed production process was estimated. Acetate and ethanol appear to be the most beneficial substrates for the integrated CCU-to-MP process in terms of electricity demand (acetate: 25 – 54 kWh/kgproduct, ethanol: 28 – 56 kWh/kgproduct). Moreover, recycling CO2 enables a carbon-negative protein production process by 2030 (considering the projected CO2 emissions from electricity in the EU: 0.096 kgCO2-eq/kWh) for formate, acetate, and ethanol (-1.1 up to 13 kgCO2-eq/kgproduct).
In contrast to traditional agriculture, microbial protein (MP) production is highly efficient in nitrogen (N) usage and can be employed to valorize a variety of recovered resources, thereby ...increasing the overall sustainability of food production. The present study aimed to establish the potential of seven recovered N sources originating from different waste streams for MP production using ethanol and acetate as growth substrates. The evaluation was based on specific growth rate, biomass yield, nutritional quality (i.e. macromolecular composition, amino acid (AA) and lipid profile) and food safety (i.e. concentration of heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), pesticides and antibiotics) of the MP. The majority of the recovered N sources did not affect the kinetics and had a minor impact on the biomass yield, compared to their commercial equivalents. The nutritional content of the biomass was similar to soy flour and did not show major variations in AA and lipid profile for the different recovered N sources. Considering the heavy metal content, an average-weighing adult should not consume >53–213 g of the microbial biomass produced on recovered N per day due to its high copper content. A substantial amount of PAH were also found in the biomass. A daily consumption of 20 g/person/day would impose 2.0–2.8 times higher dietary exposure than the mean PAH exposure through nutrition in the EU, indicating a potential concern for human health. On the other hand, the biomass was free of antibiotics, and the traces of pesticides found did not raise any major concern for food applications. Based on the results of this work, no evidence was found to restrict the application of microbial biomass produced on recovered nitrogen as food.
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•Microbial protein production with recovered N could increase food sustainability.•Recovered N sources had limited to no impact on microbial kinetics and yields.•M. pulcherrima biomass contained all essential amino acids and fatty acids.•The biomass of M. pulcherrima had a comparable nutritional value to soy flour.•A daily consumption of 20 g of biomass could be safe if PAH levels are reduced.
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