It's fascinating the variety of people who contribute here, and I'm wondering what would bring a Portuguese farmer to a site centered around technology and entrepreneurship.
(I suppose I could equally ask why this site would be discussing a bacterial outbreak in Italian olive trees, and the answer could be "because it's interesting" to both questions.)
I really like Hacker News, and I usually read my tech-related news here first. Farming is kind of the family business, and I love it.
I am also a physicist by training, and thus my interest in technology in general. Agriculture is becoming increasingly technological, and everything from farming gadgets to John Deere tractors hacking has come up many times. There are even some Plasma Physics applications to agriculture, so the interdisciplinarity never ends!
The "because it's interesting" is also an accurate answer!
> In explaining the results, Koga says that the plasma treatment speeds up the cell cycle so that the plant and seeds grow faster overall, with reactive oxygen species playing a key role in the effects.
Very cool! :)
> Nevertheless, Edward Bormashenko, professor of chemical engineering and biotechnology at Ariel University in Israel, says the situation was “more complicated than these results might indicate.” Pointing to his own team’s plasma research using seeds of lentils, beans, and wheat, he says: “There is no general approach available yet that can be applied to different kinds of seeds. Much depends on the types of seeds used, the conditions under which they geminate, and other factors.”
That is really cool, but I immediately have a follow-up question: given that plants also rely on a healthy soil ecosystem, which means symbiotic bacteria, and that this plasma treatment definitely will kill any trace bacteria on the skins of these cells, has it been explored if this has any effect?
Kind of like how you read all these stories of how the increase in C-sections results in a loss of transfer of healthy symbiotic bacteria from the mother to the child.
Ah, I feel a bit dumb for not realizing what kind of applications these would be, because I really should know better: back in 2002, when I still tried studying physics, I was part of a committee that organized a student symposium on biomedical technology. One of the speakers was Eva Stoffels, who had recently invented a low-energy plasma needle. Believe it or not, she claimed her motivation was ridding the world of the dental drill.
It's actually really interesting what you can do with plasma's in a biomedical context: bacteria are killed off really quickly by them because they lack a cell wall, without destroying human cells. At higher intensities, the plasma first breaks down the proteins connecting cells without killing them. At even higher intensities, they trigger apoptosis: programmed cell death without inflammations. Oh, and cancer cells are less resilient against them.
In the case of Stoffels' plasma needle, the idea was that it would destroy the infection while leaving healthy tissue intact. Not only that, her team found that the plasma's ionized the teeth in such a way that enamel production was increased. It sounded amazing at the time, but I guess it's hard to get this stuff out of the lab into the medical market though, since it has been over fifteen years now.
> bacteria are killed off really quickly by them because they lack a cell wall, without destroying human cells.
CORRECTION: I mixed up my terminology here. Bacteria have a cell wall (as do plants), human cells have a cell membrane[0][1]. But our cell membrane, as well as the cell wall of plant cells, are better at keeping the plasma ions out than the bacterial cell wall. In fact, the reason high plasma doses trigger apoptosis is because we actually use plasma ions as a cellular communication channel, IIRC. Would be hard to do that if our cells weren't protected against free plasma ions, right?
So the point still stands that bacteria die from plasma ion bombardment at doses that are harmless to human and plant cells.
I'm a programmer and I ended up following a farmer on Youtube [1] originally because he walked through all the tech he used on his tractor (ie, Fieldview) and elsewhere on the farm in a couple videos. I watch his videos whenever they come up now.
I love the level of organization and precision that industry is gaining. It's a good inspiration for software in other traditional areas (combined with practical AI applications and DIY hardware as well).
> agriculture is becoming increasingly technological
depends, the european CAP has subsidized old-style agriculture which has left many regions way behind, and the regulatory frameworkd is so tight that, despite the fact that many countries are producing a lot of research (on GMOs for example), it's not likely to ever be used.
I wonder how big is technology adoption in Portugal
Subsidizing old-style agriculture has two major benefits in my opinion: i) it allows for a smoother transition towards more advanced practices without crushing regular farmers and ii) it helps containing production surpluses, which has been, historically, a major concern in the European Union.
Regulations also help with avoiding surpluses, raising the bar for food safety, and have the added benefit of (arguably) fostering adaptability while giving the Union a relative protection from external markets.
Regarding the technological adoption in Portugal, I guess it depends on the sector you're considering. I really can't speak for other areas, but in the case of agriculture there have been some major investments in the past that allow for more productive practices even if not supported by major breakthroughs. It's mostly automation of harvesting, adoption of new practices and new pesticides, quality control and more training.
Yes: not considering everything that comes with a tractor these days, it's basically irrigation programmers, pH meters, humidity probes, sonars and speed-adjustment controllers for sprayers.
I hope someday I will be able to show HN some simple electronics of my own.
The irrigation controls have a direct and significant impact in yield. Other tools raise profitability by contributing to greater efficacy and less waste. The pH meter, for example, pretty much payed itself the first time it was used.
I'm asking because I was interested in reviving (at my scale) farming on my mother's caribbean island. Lots of space, sun and rain, but farming is still seen as a burden (remains of colonialism organization). I think there's a lot of things to be improved to make it both simpler, greener (ketone was used for decades there). Ultimately to give people back the amazing vegetables that grow there naturally and avoid importing low quality ones (also social benefits of people being in nature more).
Do you have advices or references to read about this ?
I know nothing about agriculture in the Caribbean, but I would suggest taking advantage of the local produce and starting there.
Do you have any ideas on what you want to grow?
I checked the Caribbean Agriculture Agricultural Research and Development's website (www.cardi.org) for some information. They have annual reports, that stop at 2011 for some reason. I would read some of them to get an idea of what are the current trends.
One idea that comes to mind after reading the 2011 report is producing high quality seeds. Grain prices for direct consumption are not as interesting.
I would also search for local farming associations to get to know what people are doing.
I suspect that the Caribbean will be more susceptible to climate change than other regions, so food security might become very important in a near future.
Mostly local indeed, but I don't think all local would make a fully balanced diet so maybe a few other things. If you step outside the road you can easily find trees loaded with varieties of oranges, citrus, coconuts, avocados .. I'd start with that and see for the rest
Many thanks for the links, I don't think I would have googled for that.
I will ask local farmers when I get the chance to, but few reports that I had by inhabitants is that .. farming is mostly avoided (laziness, pollution, whatever). To the point where they import things that used to grow locally from netherlands.
I'm also surprised about the climate change thing, I imagined a volcanic island to be too dynamic to be affected as much as, say, Europe.
There are organizations out there like the Puerto Rico Resilience Fund. Maybe they might be able to help/know someone. I read an article that sounds like they have a great solidarity network.
Same here, family tradition. Hello from Slovenia. We are also closely monitoring the situation in Italy. There are other plants that can be infected by X. fastidiosa and should be monitored for signs of disease for example here we are worried about oleander plants that were imported from South Italy.
I never understood the obsession with oleander around these parts. It's (in my humble opinion) not any prettier than "native" ornamentals, and it's toxic to boot.
Add to that list that it's apparently an eager vector for X. fastidiosa...
It's fascinating the variety of people who contribute here, and I'm wondering what would bring a Portuguese farmer to a site centered around technology and entrepreneurship.
(I suppose I could equally ask why this site would be discussing a bacterial outbreak in Italian olive trees, and the answer could be "because it's interesting" to both questions.)