Choosing Cultivars Enhanced

I sometimes think that agriculture is getting awfully spoiled. A generation ago and in much of the world today, picking a cultivar was trial and error with exchanges taking place over the fence.

Now these guys are perfecting a tool that will allow the farmer to use his own data and compare it rigorously with nearby sources and make decisions based on a lot of certainty. Sure beats listening to the seed salesman.

We are not there yet, but we will have scientifically supported best cultivars for our individual soils and local biome. And rigor matters. If you are a supplier, you need to know where your cultivar is optimal to a high degree of certainty.

Otherwise it is right back to trial and error. When we first planted raspberries back in the sixties, we started with five separate cultivars, including one developed locally for the region’s cooler climate. It was our worse type with low productivity and lousy flavor. Why it got released escapes me, unless it was supposed to grow on muskeg. In two years we were down to one successful cultivar, with good quality fruit and robust productivity.

It was vulnerable to mosaic and that meant aggressive removal of infected plants for control. Those breed for resistance were otherwise inferior.

The original banana was superior in taste and general quality to today’s version. It was lost to disease.

This technology may also support a much wider range of cultivars with a wider range of desirable characteristics.

I think that everyone knows about wild strawberries. The flavor is much more intense than the cultivated variety.

What most do not realize is that spring frost nips the tips of the berries as they come off blossom. That is why they are rounded. An unnipped berry is longer and about twice as massive. The flavor is huge. If that intensity could be replicated in a modern strawberry it would dominate the industry. And a smaller specialty berry may have a market.


Challenges To Choosing The Best Cultivars For Crop Production


http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Challenges_To_Choosing_The_Best_Cultivars_For_Crop_Production_999.html


by Staff Writers

Mexico City, Mexico (SPX) Sept 01, 2009

Selection of a crop cultivar is one of the most important management decisions a farmer makes. However, choosing a cultivar for a particular environment, depending on the location or year, is an immense challenge because of unpredictable performance of cultivars across environments.

This relationship is known as genotype-by-environment interaction (GE). Despite continued efforts to breed for cultivars with wide adaptability, GE is still a major impediment to reliable identification of superior cultivars for optimal production.

Over the past several decades, numerous statistical methods have been developed to facilitate the analysis and understanding of complex GE variability in regional cultivar trials, enhancing researchers ability to correctly identify superior cultivars.

However, some of these methods have been overutilized or abused to a point that dubious results and conclusions may have been drawn.

Rong-Cai Yang, a scientist with Alberta Agriculture and rural developmentand University of Alberta, along with his collaborators Jose Crossa and Juan Burgueno, from International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and Paul Cornelius from the University of Kentucky, has taken the issue to one of these methods.

This findings of this study is featured in the September-October 2009 issue of Crop Science, providing a critical evaluation of the biplot analysis of cultivars.

Biplot, a scatter plot that simultaneously displays points or scores for genotypes and environments, has been extensively used for studying GE or any two-way data table. Its descriptive and visualization capabilities along with the availability of user-friendly software have enabled plant scientists to examine any two-way data by a click on a computer button.

However, according to Yang, the problem is the utility and interpretations of such biplots beyond their functionality and capability.

"A biplot is simply a descriptive, graphical tool for a quick view of GE data but it cannot be used for hypothesis testing because there is no uncertainty measure," says Yang, whose research was supported by Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Yang and his co-authors used their own wealth of experiences and expertise with GE analysis to identify and discuss six critical issues arising from the use of biplot analysis. These authors stressed that mere subjective judgment calls from visualization of biplots would not be sufficient.

They recommended the use of confidence regions for individual genotype and environment scores in biplots, thereby selecting and recommending cultivars on sound statistical and scientific bases. In particular, they proposed the use of a bootstrap re-sampling strategy for constructing such confidence regions. Research is ongoing to add statistical inference capability to the biplot analysis for sound decision on cultivar selection and recommendation.

Small Unit Syngas at Nexterra

This company has grabbed some recognition and looks to be a prime supplier of this form of green technology.

Again, organic waste in the form of wood waste is not a terribly good fuel if left to its own devices. It simply does not burn hot enough without a lot of help. Throw it on an old fashioned open hearth furnace and you end up with a product that is around seventy percent carbon. In fact an engineer once suggested that it made a lot of sense to blend in about fifteen percent chopped tires in order to get the temperature high enough. Tires are after all high grade hydrocarbons.

Therefore a controlled burn that captures surplus volatiles and liquids while operating at higher process temperatures has always been attractive. These guys may have been able to achieve real market penetration with the work described to date.

I do like the small device approach. Without question costs rise hugely the further the fuel must be trucked. That is why I have focused on farm sized technologies, because the minute it leaves the farm gate, onerous cost structures kick in.

A tree farm collecting and processing wood waste has a radically different cost structure than a trucking company. A tree farm is also able to store waste and process it year round without penalty. In fact, largely the same handling equipment would be used and be on hand.

The device augers fuel upward into the center of a waste stack that is been consumed from the bottom up as a continuous process and both waste gases and volatiles exit through a stack for further processing. The working temperature is very high and this drives all volatiles out easily away form the air and oxygen.

Nexterra: Out of the woods, into the green

The drive for small, cleaner, renewable energy systems pushes Vancouver's Nexterra into the big time

By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun July 4, 2009

A biofuel technology first developed by Nexterra Energy Corp. to reduce costs for the B.C. forest industry has propelled the Vancouver company to the crest of a growing wave of green energy demand in urban North America.

The demand for urban green energy has reached the tipping point, Nexterra president and chief executive officer Jonathan Rhone believes. And he sees his company's technology, which uses wood waste to produce a synthetic gas, as being right on the leading edge.

From a single contract three years ago for a plant to replace costly natural gas at a plywood mill at Heffley Creek, north of Kamloops, Nexterra has grown to the point where it is partnering with giants like GE Energy and signing contracts at the American research lab where the atomic bomb was conceived.

GE Energy sees synthetic gas as a perfect fit for clean energy generators it has developed for universities, institutions and condominiums wanting to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. And thanks to stimulus packages here and in the U.S., never before has so much money been available to make the switch.

"I believe we are going to look back 10 years from now and we will pinpoint this time -- in the first decade of this century -- when there was this transformation of our energy markets," Rhone said in an interview in his 13th-floor office in Vancouver's Scotia Tower.

Rhone gets visibly excited about the possibilities unfolding in the energy world, where public demand for green energy is growing and governments are committing billions -- more than $180 billion world-wide -- in clean-energy technology.

What make Nexterra different is that it is developing small, self-contained units that can rely on local biomass for fuel. Everything from urban tree trimmings to construction waste is fuel for the system.

Small and green, once the personal lexicon of granola environmentalists, are the new buzzwords that are propelling companies like Nexterra's leap into the big time.

"You need small plants to reduce fuel transportation costs," Rhone said. "We believe that small-scale, highly efficient, ultra-low-emission biomass systems that are built on a distributed basis are really the way to go.

"We don't think large-scale biomass solutions make a lot of sense."

Founded in 2003 by three British Columbians who had purchased a patented clean-gas technology from an insolvent owner, Nexterra could have been just another in a long string of companies that had tried and failed at marketing a new idea. But in 2005, it got its first big break from Interior forest company Tolko Industries.

Nexterra had no track record but the three founders, Rhone, Phil Beaty and Tim Kukler, had developed a pilot plant at Kamloops that impressed Tolko managers. They had a solid background in conventional wood combustion plants and a lot of confidence. They were financed by ARC Financial of Calgary, which took an 80-per-cent ownership position in the company.

The plant slashed $1 million a year off natural gas costs when it opened in 2006 by taking wood waste such as bark and starving it of oxygen in a controlled burn to drive off a synthetic gas. It's called biomass gasification and the gas, a complex mixture of mostly carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane, is referred to as syngas.

The original incentive for Tolko was to save money. But the gasification plant produced renewable energy. Tolko was an innovative company and the green benefits were viewed as a plus. But nobody could imagine then just how valuable those benefits were to become.

Flash forward to today: U.S. President Barrack Obama's $70-billion commitment for alternative energy and his requirement that 25 per cent of electricity come from renewable sources by 2025, has given the little company with a new idea for the B.C. forest industry, an unlimited opportunity.

It got a huge boost when the U.S. department of energy chose Nexterra's gasification system to replace four fossil-fuel-fired boilers at its giant Oak Ridge lab in Tennessee, a complex of 4,300 scientists. It was where the Manhattan Project developed the atomic bomb in the Second World War.

The Nexterra project is to showcase one of the ways that the department intends to meet a target, under a presidential order, to develop renewable energy.

Nexterra has also formed a strategic alliance with GE Energy, a division of $22-billion-a-year General Electric.

One of GE Energy's subsidiaries, GE Jenbacher, produces a giant gas-fired internal-combustion engine with a generator built in, large enough to meet the power requirements of institutions and universities. The engines can run on natural gas, but GE is seeking a renewable clean-energy alternative.

"We are very excited about Nexterra's technology," Roger George, North American manager of GE subsidiary, GE Jenbacher, said in a telephone interview.

Nexterra's 52 employees -- 14 of them focused on research -- have been working with GE for a year and a half to develop a conditioned form of syngas that can meet the specifications for the high-efficiency engines.

"We are getting ready for prime time," Rhone said. "We and GE think this will be the new standard in how biomass will be converted to electricity."

In B.C., the company's small, closed-system energy system is already being used in urban applications. One has been installed in Victoria's high-end Dockside Green condominium complex, housed in a small building that blends into the rest of the waterfront development. It is fueled by urban wood waste.

Another is being installed at the University of Northern B.C. and a third is under construction at a New Westminster paper mill.

The big Canadian break, however, could prove to be the federal government's $1-billion Pulp and Paper Green Transformation Program. It was announced two weeks ago by Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt to counter the American black-liquor subsidy.

When asked about the program, Rhone's face lights up, he flips the pen he has been holding high in the air and breaks into a grin directed at marketing director Charlie Ker.

For the record, he calms down. "It's definitely an opportunity," he said. "We are talking to some of the pulp and paper companies."

Brian McCloy, a bioenergy consultant, said Rhone should be feeling giddy about the program, which will fund new projects at pulp mills that improve energy efficiency or increase renewable energy production. Nexterra has the technology already developed and proven to fit right into the industry's needs, he said.

"You can be sure he's out there beating the bushes," McCloy said of Rhone. "This black liquor package should be a real boon to Nexterra."

ghamilton@vancouversun.com

Breakup GM

While I write this Gm and ford and Chrysler are struggling to find a way to get a quickie loan to carry them over their cash flow crisis from your favorite lender of last resort, the taxpayer. Right now, the momentum is to send them to the wall to learn the joys of chapter 11.

The current proposal floating around calls for giving the GM bondholders a huge haircut and trimming the labour contracts. Of course the shareholders will be asked to walk the plank. What happened to that old adage ‘Where GM goes, America goes’. Hmmm.

GM has begun discussions with chapter 11 lawyers and are reviewing their options. Is anyone getting happier?

GM exists for one reason and one reason only and that was to have efficient access to fresh capital as needed. That was how they became the huge multi model company that they are.

I will give you a clue. That game is now over. The shylock business has just been forcibly downsized. It is now not a good idea to be just big because the shylocks are bailing like crazy to just keep themselves afloat and betting the bank on a one stop borrower does not seem such a good bet these days.

There are at least six to seven healthy future high multiple car companies wrapped up in GM. Spin them out one at a time with a fresh financing package and everyone will walk away whole. It can be done and it will be an excellent way to reposition the auto industry in North America.

The foreign competitors have already shown us that the public can handle product coming from many manufacturers. So add several more. GE is set up to do this in a heart beat. Surely GM is up to it.

Financial gigantism has been shown to be the road to financial ruin for the same old reason. If you are big enough, it is possible to game the financial system for way too long until it wrecks the global financial system.

What the Auto industry and every stakeholder in the American economy needs today is a firm kick in the pants.

So why not invite the Chinese government to invest some of their vast horde of US funds in the industry while we are at it? The humiliation should focus a lot of minds.

Financial Size Regulation

In my article on the establishment of a universal health care system, I emphasized the importance of distributing oversight and management down to the State level. Upon reflection, I realized that this must be also done for a number of quasi government agencies directed to implement national policies.

The most visible today are Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac. They are, as national instruments, far to big to fail. As State instruments, they could and be swiftly reconstituted as viable enterprises. And the temptation to deploy resources into the international securities market both as a buyer and seller abates. Do you really think that this could have happened had that been implemented in the first place?

Surely AIG deserves the same fate for the same reasons. Besides, the underwriters are past masters at syndicating the larger deals needing that scale of support. It is time they earned their fees.

The big lesson for us all, is that the ease of capital availability to larger enterprises will always bring the temptation to grow an organization by simple acquisition. This eventually creates organizational sizes that in the event of failure are dangerous to the national interest. We have that now with GM, hobbled for years with the strangle hold of their non competitive union contracts. It is finally broken. Its collapse will massively damage the US economy. Its trip through chapter 11 will resolve the contract problem.

Other companies do come to mind. GE is an extraordinarily well managed company that simply does not need to be under the same corporate roof. Six hundred plus divisions are all operating on a stand alone basis. I guarantee you that if we spun out every one of those divisions, the resulting market value would be far higher that the present. Particularly for it to be a primary asset in Warren Buffet’s portfolio.

Mergers and Acquisitions are the plaything of money managers and is driven by fat fees rather than any net gain. In fact, there is more typically a net loss. They make good sense when a strong mature company is able to provide capital access for a rapidly expanding business. The best example of that was Wendy’s acquisition of Tim Hortons. Ten years on a solid capital diet and Tim Hortons surpassed MacDonalds in Canada and began a sound expansion program in the USA. It did so well, in fact that investors forced Wendy’s to disgorge Tim hortons.

A principal of national; oversight must become the distribution and wise breakup of assets large enough to damage the national interest on failure. In fact, I would go so far as to mandate sharply lower credit availability in such an instance. The risk is clear, so regulate it accordingly.

The big five investment banks needed less leverage several years ago because of their size rather than more. That would have leveled the playing field and preserved them from participating from a dash to the bottom. And if they did not like that, then break up.