Listen to the Music of the Tardigrade (the little bear of the soil)

In am world that has gone mad with sexual orientation, let me introduce Meosis!
And Haploids..who love working together.

When they reach fusion, dipoilds happens.  The process is Plasmogamy!

1. Draw a map of the land you are working on and number each area being sampled on the map. You will need to create an index so you can identify what each numbered area represents – see the example in Figure 1 at the bottom of this section.
2. Take at least 3 core-samples from a single weedy-patch and place the core samples in a bag. Then label this bag (using a permanent marker) and index it using a clear numbering system (e.g. W1), marking the reference on your map so you know precisely where it came from. Make some notes on any distinguishing features that may be apparent e.g. “This is in a depression” or “This is where the farmer had previously-stored 2 tonnes of lime last year” etc.
3. Move to another weedy-patch and take a further 3 core-samples, placing these core-samples in a different bag. Label and index the bag appropriately (e.g. W2) and mark the reference on the map. Make notes as appropriate.
4. Continue this process until you have collected samples from a representative number of weedy-patches, say 40%, of the total number of weedy patches in the field being assessed.
5. Comparing results should give you a good indication of what is happening across your weedy patches. You may find that in most cases the conditions are similar, but that there are some patches that are very different from the average – in such cases, you may wish to investigate a little further by asking the farmer if he did something different in that area. Or you may later realize that there was a depression in that locality that you’d previously missed. Repeat steps 1-5 above for Healthy Plants using a different reference e.g. H1, H2 … etc. Then repeat the process for sick plants and so on. Comparing the results from each of these areas will offer you an insight into the overall state of the land you are working on.

1. Take 3-4 samples from each of 5-6 areas per acre (more if the field is larger), selecting these at random, ensuring that they are well distributed over the area of the field you are working on. Avoid going right to the boundary of the field and to any areas that are not representative of the field e.g. the ridge line or a depression. Make sure to mark the areas you are sampling on the map, as this information may be useful later in your investigation, particularly if you get some unexpected results.
2. Place all of these samples in the same bag and mix well before analyzing.
3. Label the bag Bare Soil. This will give you an insight into the general conditions across the field you are working on. You must repeat steps 1-3 for each individual field or paddock – using different sample bags for each.

1. Study the landscape carefully and map-out the various prominent features.
2. Take 5-6 samples from each of these areas and place them in separate bags.
3. Label each bag and use the numbering system you have established so that you can mark these on your map. These results will inform you of the biological conditions in each of the individual areas being assessed. For any single sample, please ensure that you do not fill the bag more than half-way with material. (Note: to reduce the amount of sample material, you may combine and thoroughly mix the sample material separately, in a sterile container, and then place a smaller amount of the mixture in the sandwich bag). Seal the bag with the air left inside it – do not expel the air from the bag, as this will limit the oxygen available to the biology in the sample which may result in anaerobic conditions being formed.
4. Label: All sample bags should be labeled with the name of the sample on the *outside* using a permanent marker or an affixed label. Please do not put any identifying information about your sample on a piece of paper and place it inside the bag. The paper will disintegrate, become food for microbes, and potentially change the biology of your sample. Figure 1 – Example of a map & index:

1. Pour liquid into a clean, not-breakable 4 to 8 oz container with a sealable opening (e.g. plastic water bottle with screw cap). Clean the inside of the container if you are not certain that the bottle held only water previously.
2. Fill the container ⅓ full of the liquid you want to have assessed. Leave the remainder of the container empty to maximize headspace for air exchange.
3. Once the screw cap is tightly sealed, cover it with duct tape and place it in a sealed plastic bag.
4. Be sure that the container is clearly labeled with the name of the sample on the *outside* using a permanent marker or an affixed label.

Is your favourite fruit about to go extinct? 

The deadly disease pathogen Fusarium wilt TR4 (previously referred to as Panama Disease) has been wreaking havoc and ravaging the $25 billion global banana industry – with infected plantations experiencing 100% loss and being quarantined for decades.  Colombia has already declared a National State of Emergency, but it may be too late.  A flurry of apocalyptic media accounts have followed, revealing a race to save bananas from extinction after the disease has left a trail of scorched banana plantations in its wake.

The world’s most destructive banana disease is spreading, and there are currently no chemicals available to kill the disease.   This might be a blessing in disguise as it is highly likely that chemical use has actualy contributed to this problem in the first place.   

In August 2021, the Ecuadorian Government has raised the banana disease Fusarium wilt TR4 to pandemic level.  “Ecuador’s message to the global banana community is clear: Fusarium is not just a pest; it is a lethal pandemic for bananas that currently has no solution and that threatens one of the most important industries for the Ecuadorian economy.”

Fusarium wilt is a common fungal disease that attacks many types of herbaceous plants, including banana trees. Also known as Panama disease, fusarium wilt of banana is difficult to control and severe infections are often deadly. The disease has decimated crops and has threatened an estimated 80 percent of the world’s banana crop. Read on to learn more about banana fusarium wilt disease, including management and control. Banana Fusarium Wilt Symptoms Fusarium is a soil-borne fungus that enters the banana plant through the roots. As the disease progresses upward through the plant, it clogs the vessels and blocks the flow of water and nutrients. The first visible banana fusarium wilt symptoms are stunted growth, leaf distortion, and yellowing, and wilt along the edges of mature, lower leaves. The leaves gradually collapse and droop from the plant, eventually drying up completely.   A good article https://draxe.com/health/banana-fungus/ 

The good news is there probably is a natural organic solution, simply utilizing the natural defense mechanism of microbes.    

https://sfamjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2672.2006.03083.x 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00616/full

Fusarium Wilt is a problem in the soil…a bad guy is taking over!    Raise the good guys and let them do their magic!

Bananas As We Know Them Are Doomed VICE News

Disease Is Ravaging the $25 Billion Banana Industry Bloomberg

Why The World’s Most Popular Banana May Go Extinct Business Insider

The world’s bananas are in trouble BBC World Service

Why The Banana Business Of Chiquita And Dole Is At Risk CNBC

Not All Viruses Are Bad For You. Here Are Some That Can Have a Protective Effect
CYNTHIA MATHEW, THE CONVERSATION10 AUGUST 2019
Viruses are mostly known for their aggressive and infectious nature.

It’s true, most viruses have a pathogenic relationship with their hosts – meaning they cause diseases ranging from a mild cold to serious conditions like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). They work by invading the host cell, taking over its cellular machinery and releasing new viral particles that go on to infect more cells and cause illness.

But they’re not all bad. Some viruses can actually kill bacteria, while others can fight against more dangerous viruses. So like protective bacteria (probiotics), we have several protective viruses in our body.

Protective ‘phages’
Bacteriophages (or “phages”) are viruses that infect and destroy specific bacteria. They’re found in the mucus membrane lining in the digestive, respiratory and reproductive tracts.

Mucus is a thick, jelly-like material that provides a physical barrier against invading bacteria and protects the underlying cells from being infected. Recent research suggests the phages present in the mucus are part of our natural immune system, protecting the human body from invading bacteria.

Phages have actually been used to treat dysentery, sepsis caused by Staphylococcus aureus, salmonella infections and skin infections for nearly a century. Early sources of phages for therapy included local water bodies, dirt, air, sewage and even body fluids from infected patients. The viruses were isolated from these sources, purified, and then used for treatment.

Phages have attracted renewed interest as we continue to see the rise of drug resistant infections. Recently, a teenager in the United Kingdom was reportedly close to death when phages were successfully used to treat a serious infection that had been resistant to antibiotics.

Nowadays, phages are genetically engineered. Individual strains of phages are tested against target bacteria, and the most effective strains are purified into a potent concentration.

These are stored as either bacteriophage stocks (cocktails), which contain one or more strains of phages and can target a broad range of bacteria, or as Adapted bacteriophages, which target specific bacteria.

Before treatment, a swab is collected from the infected area of the patient, cultured in the lab to identify the bacterial strain, and tested against the therapeutic phage stocks.

Treatment can be safely administered orally, applied directly onto wounds or bacterial lesions, or even spread onto infected surfaces. Clinical trials for intravenous administration of phages are ongoing.

Beneficial viral infections
Viral infections at a young age are important to ensure the proper development of our immune systems. In addition, the immune system is continuously stimulated by systemic viruses at low levels sufficient to develop resistance to other infections.

Some viruses we come across protect humans against infection by other pathogenic viruses.

For example, latent (non-symptomatic) herpes viruses can help human natural killer cells (a specific type of white blood cell) identify cancer cells and cells infected by other pathogenic viruses. They arm the natural killer cells with antigens (a foreign substance that can cause an immune response in the body) that will enable them to identify tumour cells.

This is both a survival tactic by the viruses to last longer within their host, and to get rid of competitive viruses to prevent them from damaging the host. In the future, modified versions of viruses like these could potentially be used to target cancer cells.

Pegivirus C or GBV-C is a virus that does not cause clinical symptoms. Multiple studies have shown HIV patients infected with GBV-C live longer in comparison to patients without it.

The virus slows disease progression by blocking the host receptors required for viral entry into the cell, and promotes the release of virus-detecting interferons and cytokines (proteins produced by white blood cells that activate inflammation and removal of infected cells or pathogens).

In another example, noroviruses were shown to protect the gut of mice when they were given antibiotics. The protective gut bacteria that were killed by the antibiotics made the mice susceptible to gut infections. But in the absence of good bacteria, these noroviruses were able to protect their hosts.

The future of therapeutic viruses
Modern technology has enabled us to understand more about the complexities of the microbial communities that are part of the human body. In addition to good bacteria, we now know there are beneficial viruses present in the gut, skin and even blood.

Our understanding of this viral component is largely in its infancy. But it has huge potential in helping us understand viral infections, and importantly, how to fight the bad ones. It could also shed light on the evolution of the human genome, genetic diseases, and the development of gene therapies.The Conversation

Cynthia Mathew, Research Assistant, University of Canberra.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

The most common conception of corruption is the theft of public money through unscrupulous methods. However, there are many other ways to deceive the public and one of the most notorious is the promotion of industrial chemical agriculture.

Most people in Ecuador, visitors and residents believe that the food is natural and therefore organic. Nothing could be further from the truth. Only 0.3% of the 14 million agricultural hectares are certified organic. That means that those farms have to conform to a rigid process of certification. In the U.S., by the way, the Federal Department of Agriculture allows farmers to use pesticides and still be considered organic.

There are rural campesinos that do not use excessive nitrogen and pesticides, but they are very few and many of them do not follow acceptable practices of not using fresh manure to fertilize plants.

The reality is that almost all farmers, with a few exceptions, are controlled by an industry that has zero interest in the quality or nutritional quantity of the food.

The Big 6 becomes the Big 3

Last year there were the Big 6 and today there are only the Big 3. Bayer bought Monsanto, DOW and DuPont merged and ChemChina bought Syngenta. They combine for about $375 billion in sales in a $450 billion market worldwide of chemical and biological amendments in agriculture.

The concentration of capital is due to over-production and increased competition at a time when farmers are beginning to reject chemicals. India is the best example with the hundreds of suicides due to destroyed families from high costs of the chemicals and lost production. The chemical industry is now switching to biologic products. That may appear to be good but it is not because it follows the same philosophy, but with a different product. I will explain in a minute.

Small farmers are hurt by ag-industry practices too.

The results from the intensive approach from the chemical ag-industry in Ecuador are devastating. They now control the entire university system, so that any agricultural engineer in the country gets almost no training in soil microbiology. There is absolutely no focus on true food nutrition and what used to be a sovereign food system — that is now as foreign as the salchipapas are to the traditional diet.

The excessive use of urea that is freely distributed by the government through the Ministerio de Agricultura Y Ganadería (MAGAP) is the prime reason for toxic watershed system which causes cancer in humans and animals alike and can only be filtered out with active carbons filtering.

The soils are loaded with salts from the excessive use of chemicals and fertilizers which requires the excessive use of irrigation and increasing erosion everywhere. Ecuador has lost between 20 and 40% of the organic material that normally occupies the top 10 inches of soil. The constant tillage to increase production has freed millions of tons of carbon normally sequestered in the soil upon which the bacteria and fungus use for 50% of their diet, not to mention the destruction of the mycorrhiza and bacterial species that have existed or millions of years.

The UN report on Trade and Commerce published in 2013, “Wake Up Before It Is Too Late” pointed out that the largest contributor to global warming and the green-house effect is industrial agriculture which accounts for 71% of all carbon in the atmosphere. In Ecuador, that means increased flooding on the coast and loss of glaciers and the eventual evaporation of the original 235 glacial lakes in the Cajas Mountains, west of Cuenca.

The impact on health

The worst impact is on health. There are over 450 chemicals that make up the more than 9,000 pesticide compounds that have been directly attributed to non-infectious disease and are now in epidemic form. These include 35 cancers of which 3% of occur in children, as well as other childhood diseases including autism, type 1 diabetes. In the general population, allergies, asthma, depression, Parkinson, Alzheimer’s, metabolic syndrome problems, depression, sexual reproduction, etc., are also on the increase.

The average life span in Ecuador is going down, the use of pharmaceutical drugs is going up and farmers under pressure to increase production are using more chemicals.

The proposal from the former president Correa and current vice president Glas to use transgenic (GMO) seeds is nothing more than a continued policy of chemical additives with a punch that will permanently make glyphosate as natural as DDT until the world rejected it.

The only reason to use GMO is to make money for the multinational companies. The effects of the GMO are absolutely astounding and incredibly horrendous to the entire population. The introduction of any seeds will destroy whatever native population that existed before in short order as a result of cross pollination. The seed producers own patents and have the right to take over any production if the seed was not purchased from the manufacturer. Over 80% of all GMO is packaged with glyphosate which means that pregnant women who consume food produced with that GMO seeds will have glyphosate in their blood during and lactating milk which will then be fed to their children.

The combined effect of the intensive chemicals in the agricultural industry and GMO products has literally destroyed any semblance of a healthy population and the source of food for the future, the soil.

Is this not a corrupt industry?

Ag industry bio products

Let me go back to an earlier point: biological products. Let’s start with a simple lesson in plant development.

Plant development depends on photosynthesis, which uses solar energy to combine with carbon from the air to produce simple proteins, carbohydrates and simple sugars within the plant system. About half of these nutrients are used by the plant for growth and metabolic processes but the rest goes to the roots.

In trees, about 85% of nutrients support the roots while in grasses it is about 35%. Why? The plant releases almost 100,000 phytochemicals called exudates to attract microorganisms, bacteria and fungus. The microorganisms live within 1 to 2 cm. of the roots and are attracted to eat the phyto chemicals. The bacteria and fungus secrete an enzyme that breaks down the crystalline structure of soil aggregates of sand, silt and clay to release minerals in soluble form that eventually gets consumed by the plants.

The plant knows what it needs based on which stage of plant development it is in, such as stalk, branch, leaf, flower and fruit development. How many microorganisms does the plant require? More than a hundred thousand different species in the quantity of many millions of each.

The agricultural industry sells about 5 to10 different microorganisms because it is easy to replicate them. The plant needs hundreds of thousands. What is the problem? The large variety of microorganisms facilitate plant stimulation and the immune system against pests. The limited approach of a few falls short.

In addition and more importantly, humans need between 80-90 trace minerals a day and the only way to get them is if the food comes with a rich variety of minerals and that can only happen with an agriculture that is based on rich microbiology. There is no other way. When people refer to their products being agroecological, they interpret natural use of fertilizer as being organic. It is not. True agroecological production is totally based on the scientific application of microorganisms produced from the very same soil location, not from the US to be used in Ecuador. This is why Denver and Canada could not produce quinoa successfully; same altitude and climate but different soil and microorganisms.

Food produced by microbiological methods will have between 40% and 500% more minerals, antioxidants, vitamins and probiotic bacteria. This is why there is a health crisis. There are a lot of people in Tungurahua, Chimborazo and Bolivar provinces who have thyroid problems. The food they used to eat more than a generation ago that was semi organic had 5 times more iodine than the current food and if they do not buy iodized salt, they are going to have metabolic problems with the thyroid. This is one example of many.

The best example of the benefits of eating organic food is Okinawa, Japan where people live far longer lives than the average by consuming a high organic vegetable diet with a little fish and no meat products. That is another story but the key is the consumption of organic vegetables.

On my farm, we produce a very rich microbiome in the compost that we then use to extract the microbiology and spray the gardens and fruit trees. No pests, no worries with higher production yields. I am working with farmers around the country to advance these techniques through teaching and advocacy.

_________________

Shelly Caref retired to Ecuador after working as an engineer and mid level manager in the high tech industry for multinational companies. He and his wife, Nelly, discovered that using chemicals in agriculture had direct linkages that caused her illnesses, his daughters breast cancer and his granddaughters type 1 diabetes. He began a five year journey of discovery, investigation and experimentation to fully understand what is “biological agriculture” and why it is the only way to produce food. He can be reached at scaref@gmail.com The ebook can be purchased in English at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/648740