'The Discord Leaks' looks at one of the biggest leaks of government secrets in U.S. history
New reporting by The Washington Post and 'Frontline' reveals details about Jack Teixeira’s alleged leak of classified U.S. intelligence on the Discord chat platform, his possible motivations and the red flags officials missed. The documentary premieres Dec. 12 on PBS and online. The Washington Post's Shane Harris joins Morning Joe to discuss.
Dec. 12, 2023
AGRO ECOLOGY
New genetic vulnerability to herbicide found in nearly 50 sweet and field corn lines
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RESEARCHERS FROM USDA AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR DISCUSS THE FIRST PUBLIC REPORT OF SEVERE TOLPYRALATE SENSITIVITY IN CORN.
view moreCREDIT: PAVLE PAVLOVIC
URBANA, Ill. — When a sweet corn breeder reached out in 2021 to report severe injury from the herbicide tolpyralate, Marty Williams hoped it was a fluke isolated to a single inbred line. But two years later, after methodical field, greenhouse, and genetic testing, his new Pest Management Science study not only confirms sensitivity to tolpyralate in 49 sweet corn and field corn lines, but also reveals a new genetic vulnerability that may affect corn more generally.
Tolpyralate is a relatively new HPPD-inhibiting herbicide labeled for all types of corn. Typically, corn detoxifies HPPD-inhibitors before they can cause injury, through expression of the Nsf1 gene. Corn lines with mutant nsf1 alleles can show sensitivity to HPPD-inhibitors, but that wasn’t the case with tolpyralate in the lines Williams tested. Instead, his study showed tolypyralate sensitivity is related to a different gene entirely, explaining why sensitivity was neither expected nor caught during the breeding process.
“Cross-sensitivity to multiple postemergence herbicides, all linked to mutant nsf1 alleles, has been understood for years. Breeders typically screen with a product like nicosulfuron, an ALS-inhibitor, because it'll identify (i.e., kill) any inbreds that aren’t tolerant to a wide variety of herbicides, including most HPPD-inhibitors,” said Williams, an ecologist with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and affiliate professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The original sweet corn line from 2021 had been screened with nicosulfuron, showing no injury and indicating the Nsf1 gene was doing its job. Expecting the same result with tolpyralate was reasonable, since no one had reported major crop injury from the new herbicide. So, when tolpyralate injury reared its head, the breeder was baffled.
The unusual case led Williams’ team to start hunting for bleached-white corn — the telltale sign of HPPD-inhibitor injury — around the U. of I. farms.
They didn’t have to hunt long.
Here and there, among strapping green corn rows, were stunted, white stragglers. The team contacted the researchers running trials around the farms to find out what had been sprayed. Tolpyralate, every time.
Faced with a phenomenon that looked less and less like a fluke, Williams’ crew embarked on field and greenhouse trials to determine just how widespread tolpyralate sensitivity was. Having easy access to a sweet corn diversity panel, they focused mostly on that group. But they also tested a narrow panel of field corn genotypes.
From the modest screening, the team documented 49 sweet corn (43) and field corn (6) inbreds that suffered moderate to severe injury from tolpyralate. Importantly, the source of the sugary enhancer gene in sweet corn, a parent line for many sweet corn hybrids, was among the most sensitive genotypes, suggesting sensitivity could be even more widespread.
Interestingly, injury was far worse with the addition of atrazine and herbicide adjuvants commonly co-applied with HPPD-inhibitors.
“When we applied pure tolpyralate to the sensitive sweet corn inbred, the crop looked fine,” Williams said. “But when we added adjuvants recommended by the herbicide label — crop oil or methylated seed oil —we got a severe bleaching response. And when we also included atrazine, which is common with HPPD-inhibitors, plant mortality was rapid.”
Williams clarified it’s not feasible to just remove the adjuvants from the tank. They improve herbicide uptake by weeds and are essential for successful weed control.
“Tolpyralate has agronomic advantages, but obviously it will have limited utility if it harms the crop,” Williams said.
With mounting evidence suggesting nsf1 wasn’t to blame for tolpyralate sensitivity, the team then mapped the genome to find the culprit.
“Using the original sensitive sweet corn line to map the trait, we narrowed it down to the region on chromosome 5 near Nsf1. But it’s not Nsf1, and there's nothing obvious in the genomic region we identified that easily explains tolpyralate sensitivity. So, while we've mapped the trait, the physiological mechanism remains elusive.”
Williams notes that more research is needed to get to the bottom of tolpyralate sensitivity, both in terms of the physiological mechanism and how widespread the trait might be in all types of corn. He said there’s potential to develop molecular markers that can identify sensitive corn lines, which would be useful in improving tolerance to tolpyralate.
For now, he wants to raise awareness among corn breeders, growers, and chemical companies working on the next generation of HPPD-inhibitors, especially since this is the first incidence of a genetic vulnerability to a corn herbicide documented in over three decades.
“What we have learned from this research may be helpful beyond tolpyralate itself, since several new HPPD-inhibitors derived from the same chemical structure are being developed,” Williams said. “If we can avoid additional problems in the future, let's do it now."
The study, “First report of severe tolpyralate sensitivity in corn (Zea mays) discovers a novel genetic factor conferring crop response to an herbicide,” is published in Pest Management Science [DOI: 10.1002/ps.7896]. Authors include Marty Williams, Nicholas Hausman, Ana Saballos, Christopher Landau, Matthew Brooks, Pat Flannery, William Tracy, and Charlie Thompson.
Pest Management Science
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THAWING CAUSED BY WARM WINTER WEATHER INCREASES MANURE RUNOFF FROM FIELDS – LEADING TO HIGHER PHOSPHORUS CONTENT IN WISCONSIN LAKES.
view moreCREDIT: HERB GAM, USGS.
URBANA, Ill. – Nutrient runoff from agricultural production is a significant source of water pollution in the U.S., and climate change that produces extreme weather events is likely to exacerbate the problem. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign looks at how extreme rainfall impacts runoff and suggests possible mitigation strategies.
“We look at more than a decade of precipitation events in the state of Wisconsin and quantify the increase in nutrient runoff right around the event and at the end of the growing season. Climate models predict that we’ll continue to see an increase in extreme events, and our works speaks to the challenging relationship between nutrient use and water quality,” said Marin Skidmore, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U. of I. Skidmore is lead author of the study with coauthors Jeremy Foltz from University of Wisconsin-Madison and Tihitina Andarge from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
“Our focus on a single state allows us to accurately measure farm locations and practices, while keeping statewide regulation constant, in a way that would be difficult in a national study,” Skidmore added.
Livestock manure and crop fertilizer are major causes of nonpoint source pollution from agriculture. Wisconsin has a large dairy industry, where most farms are below the federal definition of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and therefore not regulated under the Clean Water Act. Instead, they are subject to a patchwork of local regulations.
The researchers studied water quality across nearly 50 watersheds in Wisconsin from 2008 to 2020. They correlated ammonia and phosphorus concentration data from the Water Quality Portal with the location of livestock farms and crop acreages, and they determined nutrient levels after ½ inch, 1 inch, and 2 inches of rainfall.
They found spikes in nutrient concentrations immediately after extreme precipitation events, and the effect increased with the amount of precipitation. For example, within five days of an inch of precipitation, ammonia was 49% higher and phosphorus was 24% higher. If there was at least one day in a month with over an inch of precipitation, monthly ammonia was 28% higher and monthly phosphorus was 15% higher.
“We observe a significant interaction between rainfall, agricultural production, and runoff. It is not just a short-term spike in nutrient levels; at the end of the season, we still see persistent increases in phosphorus and ammonia attributed to those extreme precipitation events months earlier,” Skidmore stated.
However, the researchers found that agricultural management practices can help mitigate the effects.
“Our results show that cover crops planted in the winter can lower the amount of nutrients in the water. Areas with cover crops have significantly lower spikes in ammonia and phosphorus, and the effect persists until the end of the growing season. We already know cover crops are great for soils and nutrient management, but this is additional empirical evidence showing that cover crops are climate-smart practices that can help agriculture be resilient into the future,” Skidmore said.
The researchers also observed the presence of legacy nutrients, which are left behind from agricultural practices decades or even centuries ago.
“There is a direct impact of extreme precipitation on runoff that is unexplained by current activities. We attribute this to sedimented nutrients that remain in the soil from previous activities,” Skidmore noted. “One of the best ways to deal with legacy nutrients is to ensure soils are healthy. By preventing soil erosion, you keep the legacy nutrients in the soil and out of surface water. These findings further support the use of management practices such as conservation tillage, vegetative buffer strips, and cover crops.”
Wisconsin watersheds feed into North America's two largest river systems, the Mississippi and Great Lakes/St. Lawrence. Nutrient pollution can have acute local impacts, such as green algal blooms, which can be toxic to humans and animals. If people can’t enjoy recreational activities like swimming or fishing, it leads to losses for local economies. Furthermore, downstream impacts continue along the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico where nutrients contribute to a growing dead zone.
Finding solutions to dealing with nutrient pollution benefits the environment and society in general, Skidmore noted.
“Conservation strategies are not necessarily cost-effective for producers, so we must ensure there are policies in place to support their implementation. As we're approaching the next Farm Bill, there are discussions around how to allocate funds from the Inflation Reduction Act for climate-smart and conservation ag practices. It’s important that such practices continue to receive funding so farmers can facilitate those benefits for all of us,” she concluded.
The paper, “The impact of extreme precipitation on nutrient runoff,” is published in the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association [doi.org/10.1002/jaa2.90]. Authors are Marin Skidmore, Tihitina Andarge, and Jeremy Foltz. Skidmore and Foltz received funding from the Wisconsin Dairy Innovation Hub and Andarge was supported by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Grant No. 2022-67023-36377.
Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
The impact of extreme precipitation on nutrient runoff
2,114 seizures of endangered animals and timber in major international law enforcement operation
COP28: The UN’s net-zero food plan to save the 1.5-degree goal, combat climate ‘doomisim’
UN’s agriculture wing launched on Sunday a ground-breaking plan that looks to transform the world’s agrifood systems from a net emitter to a carbon sink by 2050.
As COP28 heads into its final working days in Dubai, the UN’s agriculture wing launched on Sunday a ground-breaking plan that looks to transform the world’s agrifood systems from a net emitter to a carbon sink by 2050.The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has identified 10 priority areas – such as livestock, soil and water, crops, diets and fisheries – where following the roadmap can help push the world closer to achieving ‘Zero Hunger’, the second of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The aim: to transform agrifood systems – which encompass how the food we eat is farmed or raised, how it is transported, and how and where we dispose of it – growing harvesting from net emitters to into a carbon sink by 2050, capturing 1.5 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
The goal: To help to eliminate world hunger without driving the planet past the 1.5 degree limit for global warming as set by the Paris Agreement.
On the side lines of the UN climate conference in Dubai (COP28), UN News spoke to David Laborde, Director of the Agrifood Economics Division at FAO, who said that the roadmap is designed to avoid “doomism” and provides avenues to act today in a way that can benefit all now and in the future.
“We need policymakers to act. We need the civil society to be mobilized and the private sector to understand that making better choices today means making investments more sustainable and more profitable for tomorrow.”
While 120 action points may seem like a great deal, Mr. Laborde stressed that the end goal is to achieve “a system transformation where everyone has to play a role”.
Meanwhile, FAO’s chief economist, Maximo Torero, told UN News that the goal of this roadmap is to transform agrifood systems through accelerated climate actions to “help achieve food security and nutrition for all, today and tomorrow.”
With around 738 million chronically malnourished people around the world, Mr. Torero said food must be part of the discussion on climate and must attract climate investments, which currently sit at a meagre four percent.
According to a report released in connection to the roadmap, FAO said climate finance flowing to agrifood systems is strikingly low and continues to diminish compared to global climate finance flows, at a time when this type of financing is urgently needed.
He said the work being done at COP28 is “a good starting point”, and this roadmap can provide guidance for implementing the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action, which was launched at the high-level opening of the conference.
The FAO initiative was launched on the day dedicated to food, agriculture and water at Dubai’s Expo City, where ministers and other senior officials gathered to discuss pathways towards implementing the Emirates Declaration, now signed by over 150 member States.
In a message to the high-level event, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said the Declaration is a “powerful statement of political will to drive the transitions we need” as the deadline to achieve the 2030 Agenda fast approaches.
“With seven years remaining to achieve our sustainable development and climate goals, we need to urgently strengthen our collective efforts using food systems as a lever to accelerate implementation.”
Ms. Mohammed added that any path to fully realizing the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement must include agriculture and food systems, from which over one third of emissions emanate.
One innovative solution to some of the most pressing global challenges humanity is facing today can be found in seaweed, “the greatest untapped resource we have on the planet”.
That’s according to Vincent Doumeizel, Senior Advisor on Oceans to the UN Global Compact, who told the UN News team at COP28 that he was leading the “seaweed revolution” which could help tackle not only the climate crisis, but also the food security and social crises.
Mr. Doumeizel highlighted the enormous ability of seaweed to absorb carbon and be a sustainable substitute for plastics, making it a great tool for climate mitigations and biodiversity restoration.
“Seaweed can grow very fast – up to 40 centimetres a day to reach 60 meters high. So, they are a real forest, and they absorb more carbon than the Amazon Forest.”
The Oceans expert said outdated food systems are among the biggest contributors to climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, soil depletion and social injustice, “with a massive number of modern slave active in these food systems”.
He said seaweed farming in East Africa has already proven its ability to create jobs and empower women in East Africa where “80 percent of the revenues go to women”.
Mr. Doumeizel noted that despite being nutrient and protein-packed, almost all the very little seaweed we eat today is gathered on the beaches.
He stressed the need to “change the narrative” of fear and doom being presented to the future generations and to “feed them hope and optimism”.
“I believe that if we learn to cultivate the ocean, we will be remembered as the first generation on the planet that will be able to feed the entire population while mitigating climate change, while restoring biodiversity and alleviating poverty. We can be remembered as such, but it needs to be altogether”.
