MAX FACTS
hydroponic news, tips and trivia
Report: United States Topsoil Might Contain
High Levels of Radioactive Cesium
A professional engineer from Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering—investigating nuclear material release from the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear disaster as part of a dissertation—claims that samples of United States
topsoil revealed levels of radioactive cesium about 10,000 per cent higher than levels
previously recorded in a study by the University of California, Berkeley. Cesium damages
healthy cells and DNA and can lead to cancer.
(Source: naturalnews.com)
MAXFACTS
hydroponic news, tips and trivia
United States Scientists Point
to Heat From Global Warming
as Crop Yields Fall
USDA Prepares for Ug99
USDA scientists are working with their counterparts in Kenya to
develop strategies to combat Ug99, a strain of wheat stem rust with the
capacity to overcome many of the resistance genes that have been used
to combat wheat pathogens for the past 50 years. Ug99 has spread from
Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and scientists fear it could eventually reach
the United States.
(Source: sciencedaily.com)
22
Maximum Yield USA | January 2012
United States crop scientists have pinpointed slightly higher
nighttime temperatures as the culprit in falling crop yields in a
study that covers the last three decades.
“The magnitude of recent temperature trends is larger than
those for precipitation in most situations,” the study said.
Rising nighttime summer temperatures being seen in crop
belts around the world have already shrunk output of many
crops and vegetables.
“We don’t grow tomatoes in the deep south in the summer.
Pollination fails,” said Ken Boote, a crop scientist with the
University of Florida.
Although climate change in its entirety has been the
subject of intense study, “the biggest thing is [that] high
nighttime temperatures have a