California Fruit and Vegetable

Tag: U.S. Department of Agriculture

  • Breeding a Better Potato for a Better Potato Chip

    Photo courtesy of Potatoes USA.

    Potato chips are America’s classic snack: crunchy, salty, greasy and tasting of potato or flavored with sour cream, vinegar, BBQ, maple bacon or Cajun dill. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Americans eat more potato chips than any other nation; more than four pounds a person a year, according to Potatoes USA. About 22 percent of the U.S. potato crop—nearly 7,500 million pounds annually—are made into chips. Consumers spend more than $7 billion dollars buying potato chips at retailers. And USDA’s Agricultural Research Service helps ensure that the country always has the perfect potato for frying into chips.

    ARS’ potato breeding program has already produced some major winners in the potato chip category. One is Atlantic, a variety ARS developed and released in 1976, that remains the number two chipping variety in the United States.

    But potato producers have been ready for an Atlantic replacement for years. Atlantic is vulnerable to internal heat necrosis, where darker spots or flecks form in the flesh of the potato particularly in sandy soils during warm, dry seasons. It is also susceptible to Hollow Heart, a condition in which a hollow depression forms in the center of the potato when moisture levels are very uneven while the potatoes are growing.

    “But diseases and pests keep evolving, so we need to keep breeding new varieties to stay ahead of them,” explained Research Geneticist Richard Novy, with the Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research Unit in Aberdeen, Idaho.

    Every year, scientists in the ARS potato breeding program make thousands of chipping potato crosses with an eye to improving not only disease and pest resistance, but also achieving perfect potato chip color and proper sugar levels, good storage ability and a whole host of superior agronomic traits such as yield, time to harvest and tuber size.

    Novy has a very promising new chipping potato in the pipeline at Aberdeen, known right now as A13125-3C, which is showing much potential in Idaho and in the National Chip Processing Trial (NCPT). ARS participates alongside universities and industry in the NCPT, which is run through Potatoes USA, to test potatoes simultaneously at sites all over the country.

    A13125-3C won’t get a catchy variety name until after it successfully completes several years of trials and then goes through a tissue culture process to remove any viruses and bacteria to allow the production of certified seed for producers.

    “By sharing access to germplasm and testing nationally, you can more quickly identify candidates having variety potential for the chipping industry,” Novy said. “Such a program helps regional chip companies to identify promising new potato varieties for their production of chips.”

    Across the country from the Aberdeen lab, ARS Plant Research Geneticist Paul Collins in Orono, Maine, is concentrating on breeding chipping potatoes with better disease resistance for eastern potato growers. One major focus is potatoes that can better withstand Late Blight, a fungal disease that causes an annual loss of $210 million.

    “Most diseases we are working on can affect the farmer’s ability to produce a potato crop and they can have a staggering economic impact,” Collins said. “Potato Virus Y, for example, causes annual losses of $103 million in yield and tuber quality.

    While ARS scientists are breeding potatoes to fight diseases, most consumers do not have to worry about their snack being affected by any of these viruses. The chipping varieties for the snack aisle, usually Atlantic, Snowden and Lamoka, are not found in the grocery store’s produce bins.

    “Our goal is to breed potato varieties which are resistant to these diseases, and with other agronomic traits that are important to farmers while also having quality traits like color, shape and size that are important to consumers and processors,” Collins said.

    The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency. Daily, ARS focuses on solutions to agricultural problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in U.S. agricultural research results in $20 of economic impact.

  • Soil Nutrients Affect How Attractive Plants Are to Bees From the Ground Up

    Pollination is vital for many plants, and nutrients present in the soil before these plants even sprout may affect how attractive they eventually are to pollinators, according to Penn State-led research.

    In a study with cucumber plants, the researchers found that in general, higher amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil resulted in larger plants and floral display, including flower number and size, leading to increased attractiveness to pollinators and increased fruit production.

    However, they also found that regardless of nitrogen and phosphorus levels, pollinator “rewards” such as sugar content in nectar, the amount of nectar in female flowers, and protein and lipid concentrations in pollen stayed the same.

    Anthony Vaudo, a USDA Forest Service research biological scientist who led the research while a postdoctoral scholar in entomology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, said these findings — recently published in Scientific Reports — suggest that plants may prioritize these rewards in all conditions to ensure that they attract pollinators.

    “We found that a plant could become more attractive with the help of certain nutrients in the soil, while also keeping the quality of its rewards consistent, which is necessary for getting bees to visit,” Vaudo said. “This gives us clues for how we can best restore soil, for example, after disturbance from human activity or natural disasters.”

    According to the researchers, previous studies have found an association between higher nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil and faster plant growth, as well as positive effects such as number and size of flowers and pollen number and size. However, little work had been done on how these nutrients affect pollinator attraction and, ultimately, plant reproduction.

    Christina Grozinger, Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology at Penn State, said that because soil nutrient conditions can change as a result of land use, climate change and land management — such as fertilizers and grazing livestock — it is vital to learn more about how these nutrients affect plant growth.

    “With three quarters of our food crops using pollinators to set fruit and seed, and more than 80% of flowering plants benefiting from pollinators,” Grozinger said, “it is incredibly important that we begin to understand and predict how these changes in soil conditions influence plant-pollinator interactions both in crops and in natural landscapes.”

    For the study, the researchers raised cucumber plants in Penn State greenhouses. They treated the plants with one of five fertilizer solutions: a control that had no added nitrogen or phosphorus and four others with different nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations and ratios.

    The researchers measured several characteristics of the plants, including height and above-ground biomass, the size of each plant’s male and female flowers, how many flowers each plant produced, how long it took the plants to start producing flowers after seeding, and how many cucumbers each plant produced. They also analyzed the flowers’ nectar and pollen, as well as how often the flowers were visited by bumblebees.

    After analyzing the data, the researchers found that while more nitrogen and phosphorus generally was associated with increased growth, attractiveness to pollinators and fruit production, very high levels of nitrogen began to have negative effects on some of these traits. However, increasing phosphorus levels could then mitigate this.

    Overall, they found that the ideal ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus that they tested was 4:1, which resulted in best overall growth, pollinator attraction and reproduction.

    Junpeng Mu, a researcher at Mianyang Normal University who visited Penn State while working on this project, said he thought it was particularly interesting that certain traits of the male flowers — such as number and size of flowers per plant, nectar concentration and pollen number per flower — varied with soil nutrients, but traits of the female flowers did not.

    “These findings give us a better understanding of the mechanisms that underlie interactions between plants and pollinators,” Mu said, “as well as agricultural ecosystem operations.”

    Additionally, Vaudo said he expects the findings will also be useful in his current position, in which he’ll be part of an effort to rehabilitate areas of forests that have been logged. He said the soil is often very compact from the heavy machinery that has rolled through these areas, as well as lacking in nutrients.

    “After loosening the soil, we’ll apply a material called biochar to increase the soil’s ability to hold water and bind nutrients,” Vaudo said. “Then, we can start reintroducing plants and pollinators to the area. I’m thankful to have the experience from this study, which gave me a good starting ground for actually doing some real-life applications.”

    The China Scholarship Council, Wyman’s of Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture helped support this research.

    Harland Patch, assistant research professor in entomology at Penn State, and Emily Erickson, University of California, Davis, also participated in this work. — By Katie Bohn, Pennsylvania State University

  • With Climate Change Will We Grow Cactus (Biofuel, Food & Forage Crop)?

    Could cactus pear become a major crop like soybeans and corn in the near future, and help provide a biofuel source, as well as a sustainable food and forage crop? According to a recently published study, researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno believe the plant, with its high heat tolerance and low water use, may be able to provide fuel and food in places that previously haven’t been able to grow much in the way of sustainable crops.

    Global climate change models predict that long-term drought events will increase in duration and intensity, resulting in both higher temperatures and lower levels of available water. Many crops, such as rice, corn and soybeans, have an upper temperature limit, and other traditional crops, such as alfalfa, require more water than what might be available in the future.

    “Dry areas are going to get dryer because of climate change,” Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Professor John Cushman, with the University’s College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources, said. “Ultimately, we’re going to see more and more of these drought issues affecting crops such as corn and soybeans in the future.”

    Fueling Renewable Energy

    As part of the College’s Experiment Station unit, Cushman and his team recently published the results of a five-year study on the use of spineless cactus pear as a high-temperature, low-water commercial crop. The study, funded by the Experiment Station and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, was the first long-term field trial of Opuntia species in the U.S. as a scalable bioenergy feedstock to replace fossil fuel.

    Results of the study, which took place at the Experiment Station’s Southern Nevada Field Lab in Logandale, Nevada, showed that Opuntia ficus-indica had the highest fruit production while using up to 80% less water than some traditional crops. Co-authors included Carol Bishop, with the College’s Extension unit, postdoctoral research scholar Dhurba Neupane, and graduate students Nicholas Alexander Niechayev and Jesse Mayer.

    “Maize and sugar cane are the major bioenergy crops right now, but use three to six times more water than cactus pear,” Cushman said. “This study showed that cactus pear productivity is on par with these important bioenergy crops, but use a fraction of the water and have a higher heat tolerance, which makes them a much more climate-resilient crop.”

    Cactus pear works well as a bioenergy crop because it is a versatile perennial crop. When it’s not being harvested for biofuel, then it works as a land-based carbon sink, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in a sustainable manner.

    “Approximately 42% of land area around the world is classified as semi-arid or arid,” Cushman said. “There is enormous potential for planting cactus trees for carbon sequestration. We can start growing cactus pear crops in abandoned areas that are marginal and may not be suitable for other crops, thereby expanding the area being used for bioenergy production.”

    Fueling People and Animals

    The crop can also be used for human consumption and livestock feed. Cactus pear is already used in many semi-arid areas around the world for food and forage due to its low-water needs compared with more traditional crops. The fruit can be used for jams and jellies due to its high sugar content, and the pads are eaten both fresh and as a canned vegetable. Because the plant’s pads are made of 90% water, the crop works great for livestock feed as well.

    “That’s the benefit of this perennial crop,” Cushman explained. “You’ve harvested the fruit and the pads for food, then you have this large amount of biomass sitting on the land that is sequestering carbon and can be used for biofuel production.”

    Cushman also hopes to use cactus pear genes to improve the water-use efficiency of other crops. One of the ways cactus pear retains water is by closing its pores during the heat of day to prevent evaporation and opening them at night to breathe. Cushman wants to take the cactus pear genes that allow it to do this, and add them to the genetic makeup of other plants to increase their drought tolerance.

    Bishop, Extension educator for Northeast Clark County, and her team, which includes Moapa Valley High School students, continue to help maintain and harvest the more than 250 cactus pear plants still grown at the field lab in Logandale. In addition, during the study, the students gained valuable experience helping to spread awareness about the project, its goals, and the plant’s potential benefits and uses. They produced videos, papers, brochures and recipes; gave tours of the field lab; and held classes, including harvesting and cooking classes.

    Fueling Further Research

    In 2019, Cushman began a new research project with cactus pear at the U.S. Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service’ National Arid Land Plant Genetic Resources Unit in Parlier, California. In addition to continuing to take measurements of how much the cactus crop will produce, Cushman’s team, in collaboration with Claire Heinitz, curator at the unit, is looking at which accessions, or unique samples of plant tissue or seeds with different genetic traits, provide the greatest production and optimize the crop’s growing conditions.

    “We want a spineless cactus pear that will grow fast and produce a lot of biomass,” Cushman said.

    One of the other goals of the project is to learn more about Opuntia stunting disease, which causes cactuses to grow smaller pads and fruit. The team is taking samples from the infected plants to look at the DNA and RNA to find what causes the disease and how it is transferred to other cactuses in the field. The hope is to use the information to create a diagnostic tool and treatment to detect and prevent the disease’s spread and to salvage usable parts from diseased plants. — By Claude Wharton, University of Nevada

  • California Horticulture Sales Reach $2.63 Billion in 2019

    On Tuesday, December 8, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the 2019 Census of Horticultural Specialties report, the only source of detailed production and sales data for floriculture, nursery, and specialty crops for the entire United States. The data show that horticulture operations in California sold a total of $2.63 billion in floriculture, nursery and specialty crops in 2019, down 9% from the sales in 2014. California sold 19% of the total U.S. horticulture sales of $13.8 billion in 2019, more than any other state. In addition to sales, the number of horticulture operations in California decreased 22% during this time to 1,331, and the number of operations in the United States decreased 11% during this time to 20,655.

    “The horticulture census is a vital tool that highlights the contribution horticulture growers bring to our local, state, and national economies,” said Pacific Region Director Gary R. Keough. “It shows changes and trends in the industry over the past five years and beyond.”

    Horticulture production occurred primarily in 10 states, which accounted for 66% of all U.S. horticulture sales in 2019. California ($2.63 billion), Florida ($1.93 billion) and Oregon ($1.02 billion) led the nation in sales.

    The top five commodities in California horticulture sales in 2019, and compared to 2014, were:

    ·         Nursery stock, $831 million, down 13%
    ·         Potted flowering plants, $322 million, up 7%
    ·         Transplants for Commercial Vegetable and Strawberry, $266 million, up 4%
    ·         Cut flowers & cut lei flowers, $249 million, down 26%
    ·         Annual bedding/garden plants, $232 million, up 6%
     
    Other key findings for California from the 2019 Census of Horticultural Specialties report include:

    ·         Family- or individually-owned operations made up the largest number of operations, accounting for 48%, but corporately-owned operations accounted for 80% of sales ($2.11 billion).

    ·         Total industry expenses were at $2.21 billion in 2019, with hired labor being the largest cost, accounting for 36% of total expenses.

    The Census of Horticultural Specialties is part of the larger Census of Agriculture program. It provides information on the number and types of establishments engaged in horticultural production, value of sales, varieties of products, production expenses and more. All operations that reported producing and selling $10,000 or more of horticultural crops on the 2017 Census of Agriculture were included in this special study.

    For more information and to access the full report, visit www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus.

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  • NMSU Determining Combination of Native Flowers to Attract Different Pollinators

    Pollinator insects play a critical role in the agricultural world. Without their natural transference of pollen from plant to plant while obtaining nutrients, many types of vegetables and fruit for human consumption would not exist.
     
    More than 80 percent of plants are pollinated by animals, mainly insects. In recent years, there has been a decline in pollinator insects for many reasons, one being the decline or loss of habitat.

    This is one area people can help support pollinator populations, by growing native flowering plants from which the pollinators obtain protein and lipids from the pollen, and carbohydrates and amino acids from the nectar.

    Researchers at New Mexico State University’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences are studying the activity of insects, both pollinator and beneficial, around native plants to determine what mix of flowering cultivars will attract the different insect types.

    “We have evaluated 22 different perennial native plants in seven different mixes, or combinations,” said Miranda Kersten, senior program specialist at NMSU’s Agricultural Science Center at Los Lunas, of the study that began in 2017. “For the last two summers, we have done visual observations where we record the number of different insect groups visiting the flower, and taken vacuum samples from each of the plots to see which species are attracted to the plants.”

    From the current study, which is supported by a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture Extension Implementation Program grant, the researchers can suggest plants to attract bumble bees, large and small native bees, and natural enemies of pests such as the ladybeetles, syrphid flies, and large and small wasps.

    “The flowers range in color from various shades of purple and pink, to orange, yellow and white,” Kersten said. “We did not use red flowers because insects don’t see that color well and are less attracted to the blossoms.”

    When planning a pollinator garden, it is important to include plants that flower at different times of the season. 

    “All during the season, bees are busy collecting nectar and pollen, depending if they are honey bees or native bees, to feed their babies during the winter,” said Amanda Skidmore, NMSU Cooperative Extension Service small farm integrated pest management specialist. 

    “Spring blooms help the early emerging pollinators,” she said. “Blooms throughout the summer that are different colors and shapes help attract the insects while they are building their nest. Fall blooms help them store up an energy source for their babies’ development.”

    Bees are considered to be the most efficient pollinator. They are the only pollinator that feeds on pollen/nectar as larvae and adults.

    “Some of our native bees are generalists, visiting many types of flowers, while others are specialists, visiting a specific species,” Skidmore said. “Bumblebees are generalists that are active from early spring to late fall, while different species of native bees are active in different times of the year.”

    A little-known fact is that New Mexico has more than 1,000 unique native bee species – the third-highest number in the nation behind California and Arizona.

    During the project, the researchers learned that Riddell’s ragwort was the latest-blooming flower of the plants included in the study and it was highly visited by bees and wasps in the fall. Plants with extra-floral nectaries, such as Rocky Mountain penstemon, can provide additional resources through the growing season and benefit a variety of insects.

    To learn more about identifying these beneficial insect groups, visit https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/H172/welcome.html for the Extension publication “Backyard Beneficial Insects of New Mexico.” — By Jane Moorman, New Mexico State University