What works best, they found, is paper made from banana plants. ![]() They experimented with various materials. Researchers at North Carolina State University (NC State) were looking for a way to help farmers in developing countries safely deliver small doses of pesticides. The idea that banana paper could help farmers rid their soil of nematodes was hatched more than 10 years ago. This is leading to an additional problem of biodiversity loss: Potato farmers are cutting down forests to create new fields free of the nematodes. “The nematode densities are just so astonishingly high,” says Danny Coyne, a nematode expert at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. In Kenya, the potato cyst nematode has expanded its range and thrived. In addition, small-scale farmers, who can make decent money selling potatoes, are often reluctant to rotate their planting with less valuable crops. These approaches aren’t yet feasible in many developing countries, in part because pesticides are expensive and resistant varieties of potatoes aren’t available for tropical climates. In temperate countries, worms can be controlled by alternating potatoes with other crops, spraying the soil with pesticides, and planting varieties bred to resist infection. Their potatoes are smaller and often covered with lesions, so they can’t be sold. Plants with infected, damaged roots have yellowish, wilting leaves. For potatoes, the golden cyst nematode ( Globodera rostochiensis) is a worldwide threat. Soil nematodes are a problem for many kinds of crops. But, “There’s still quite a lot of work to take it from a nice finding to a real-life solution for farmers in East Africa,” he cautions. “It’s an important piece of work,” says Graham Thiele, a research director at the International Potato Center who was not involved with the study. The strategy may benefit other crops as well. The new technique has boosted yields fivefold in trials with small-scale farmers in Kenya, where the pest has recently invaded, and could dramatically reduce the need for pesticides. Now, researchers have shown a simple pouch made of paper created from banana tree fibers disrupts the hatching of cyst nematodes and prevents them from finding the potato roots. ![]() They are challenging to get rid of, too: The eggs are protected inside the mother’s body, which toughens after death into a cyst that can survive in the soil for years. These microscopic worms wriggle through the soil, homing in the roots of young potato plants and cutting harvests by up to 70%. Please submit all relevant documents (motivation letter, CV, transcript of records, academic degree diplomas, abstract of your master thesis, two references, proof of proficiency in English and your choice of up to three favorite PhD projects) as one single PDF file.Īpplication closing date is January 31, 2022.By Erik Stokstad Potato cyst nematodes are a clever pest. Only applications submitted via the application platform will be considered in the selection process: ![]() Very good English skills (written and spoken) ![]() A strong background in one of the biological disciplines covered by the IRTG (molecular plant/microbe cell biology, fungal biology, biochemistry, plant and/or fungal genetics) degree (or equivalent) in biology, biochemistry, microbiology or similar She is a blessing in disguise for many unknown patients who come for treatment at Tata Memorial ❤️ġ1 Fully-funded Ph.D Positions are available in Plant-Microbe Interaction Biology□□□ at The Georg-August University in Germany □□ & The University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada □□□Ĭandidates should fulfill the following requirements: So, when I inherited the property, I had no doubt that this was the right thing to do,” she says. “I used to see the condition of patients when I used to visit my dad’s press, many of them were in a pitiful state, sometimes waiting even on the roads and pavements outside the hospital in extremely harsh conditions,” she tells me by way of explanation of what led her to her act of unbound magnanimity and selflessness. A 61-year-old Mumbai lady had donated her ancestral property worth around ₹120 crore to Tata Memorial Hospital - India’s largest cancer hospital.īeing an only child and, as she says, having been brought up in an atmosphere of giving, she thought that the best way she could honour her parents’ memory was to donate the entire property to Tata Memorial Hospital, which lies just 400 metres away, so that it could construct an additional chemotherapy centre.Ĭurrently, the hospital, which is said to treat one-third of the country’s total population of cancer patients, has 100 beds for chemotherapy, vastly inadequate for the over 500 patients who require the lifesaving intervention.
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