FROM KVOA NEWS

Cold temperatures damaging crops in Mexico

NOGALES - Produce suppliers say last weeks cold temperatures haven't frozen crops in Sinaloa, Mexico since 1956. 

Now they're having to evaluate the damage before more products are brought to the U.S.

"There are some plants that got severely damaged or some plants that were lost, so we are anticipating lower volumes going forward than normal volumes," Martin Ley said.

Del Campo officials said they've never had to deal with this type of produce damage in the past, but thankfully not all was lost during last weeks freezing temperatures.

"There was significant foliage damage and some damage to some of the fruits," Ley said.

Ley said some vegetables and fruits were more susceptible to the freezing climate than others.

"Tomatoes, peppers some eggplants still fare much better, and those plants are going to come back and recuperate," Ley said.

Not only are produce suppliers noticing the affects of Mother Nature, but the Nogales Food Bank is also noticing a produce shortage.


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From Popular Zcience

Fresher Water Elevated phosphorus levels in water, often traceable to pig-waste runoff, are a major contributor to algal blooms that steal oxygen from fish and render drinking water toxic. Mitch Romanowski This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. And this little piggy is genetically modified to poop less phosphorus, making it the most environmentally friendly pig in the world.

Like all animals, pigs' cells need phosphorus to make DNA, build cell membranes, and transport energy. But pigs can’t digest phytate, a phosphorus-heavy molecule in grains, so farmers fortify pig feed with pure phosphate or phytase, an enzyme that breaks usable phosphate off phytate. Still, pigs excrete nearly all the phosphorus they eat, and this washes into the ocean, where it feeds bacteria and algae that create oxygen “dead zones,” a major killer of marine wildlife.

The Enviropig is the first swine (a Yorkshire, to be exact) able to digest phytate on its own. The project started a decade ago when Cecil Forsberg, a biologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, genetically modified pigs so that their salivary glands would secrete phytase. This allows the pigs, now in their eighth generation, to get their phosphate from grains alone, and to excrete about 40 percent less of it. Switching to Enviropig herds will be expensive for farmers, Forsberg says, but in the long run subtracting supplements will save $1.75 per pig annually—a windfall for a 100,000-pig farm. He is currently petitioning the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Health Canada for permission to serve Enviropig meat. “Unfortunately, it is illegal for us to do taste tests at this time, despite the temptation,” he says. “But I expect they’ll taste quite good.”

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