Politically correct or not, soybean growers are going to start talking a lot more about skin colour. They may even start discriminating on the basis of hair colour too. Researchers are finding that Ontario's soybean industry could be more profitable if more time were spent worrying about how crops look.
Brown beans could make a better no-till crop, and also unlock new markets, says Malcolm Morrison, soybean expert at the federal agriculture department's Ottawa plant research centre.
Morrison says scientists are taking a hard look at a phenomenon that farmers have known about for years. Soybeans are yellow, but every now and then, a pod will contain one brown bean.
With varieties such as Maple Arrow, he says, the odds of a bean being brown are about one in 50,000. Researchers have learned, however, that the dark seed colour is controlled by a single gene, so it shouldn't be too hard to breed new varieties that produce beans that are all brown.
At first Morrison thought brown beans would give an edge to farmers in short-season areas. "We hoped they would dry down faster, the same way a house with a dark roof absorbs more heat," he says. Faster drydown would let breeders start with longer-season stock, so in theory they could produce higher-yielding varieties.
The theory has fizzled. It turns out the change in colour is like a mirage. The seed coat is essentially the same colour in yellow and brown beans, but in brown beans it's much thicker, so it appears darker.
Morrison plans to start tests to check whether the brown beans are a better choice for planting in no-till and in early spring. "We may be able to use the thicker seed coat to protect the seed from the cold soils," he explains. "If we can, we may be able to improve germination rates."
The brown beans could also open the door for the so-called 'molecular pharming', he says. Soybean seed coats are relatively rich in a number of medically important chemicals, including peroxidase.
Morrison suspects that the thick seed coat in brown beans will have even more of the chemicals, perhaps enough for pharmaceutical companies to switch to farm fields instead of manufacturing plants for their supplies.
But he's still puzzled by the colour of the hair that grows on soybean stems, leaves and pods.
In Canada, most short-season soybeans have brown, tawny hair. Many longer-season varieties have grey hair.
The trait is also tied to hilum colour. Silver hair varieties produce clear hilum beans that qualify for export premiums. Tawny hair varieties produce dark hilum beans that are restricted to crushing and feed markets.
Somehow, the trait is also tied to yield, Morrison says. In three of the last four years, grey-haired varieties have out yielded brown-haired lines, he points out. In 1992, the so-called year without a summer, however, brown-haired varieties out yielded grey-haired lines.
Morrison can't explain it, except to say that while grey-haired varieties have higher yield potential, brown-haired varieties have better yield stability: "We must keep looking for answers."
Soybeans finally catch biotech wave
Soybeans that grow in the dark are on their way to a field
near you as researchers finally drag the soybean crop into the
era of biotechnology.
Scientists are promising soybeans that grow faster, produce bigger crops, and sell at higher prices...all within a few years.
Soybean breeders have been stuck in the 1800s, handcuffed by century-old backcrossing techniques. Meanwhile, breeders working on other crops, especially canola, have zoomed into the 21st Century, using biotechnology to give their crops new traits.
Soybeans can now start to catch up. Scientists at the federal agriculture department's plant research centre in Ottawa have found out how to trick the soybean plant into accepting foreign genes.
Ron Sinha, biotechnologist at the research centre, calls his team "the gene jockeys" and says they'll be riding soybeans hard.
"We've finally gone from thinking about how to get genes into soybeans to thinking about what genes to put in," Sinha says. Soybeans still lag compared to canola, a far easier crop to manipulate. But soybeans are gaining ground. The federal agriculture department granted 270 permits for field testing of bio-engineered canola in 1995, compared to 48 for soybeans.
Almost all those soybean tests were spearheaded by private companies. Over three-quarters focused on herbicide tolerance, allowing farmers to spray their crops with Roundup or Liberty.
The agriculture department researchers, by contrast, are trying to change the internal mechanisms that cause a soybean seed to sprout, grow, and produce more seed.
Sinha says researchers are working on a trait called the "green gene", discovered at Queens University. It makes soybean plants produce 30 per cent more chlorophyll, the chemical at the heart of photosynthesis.
Plants with the green gene can keeping growing under low light conditions, Sinha says. Overall, the extra solar efficiency should help them produce an extra 10 to 20 per cent more bushels. "We'll be field testing these beans within a couple years," Sinha says.
Breeders injected the green gene into canola five years ago, Sinha says.
New genes will also help soybean plants keep healthy. Researchers are targeting white mould, for instance. "When we learn more about how white mould works inside the soybean plant, we'll be able to work on genes to help the plant fight back," Sinha says. "It will take a lot of study, but has definite potential."
Another gene will control how the plant uses carbon, a vital element in protein, oil and carbohydrates. By working as a "traffic cop" inside the plant to send the carbon where they want it, researchers hope to produce soybeans that are richer in oil, or protein, or carbohydrates, so they can be grown as a premium crop for specific food or industrial uses.
Daina Simmonds, geneticist at the station, says biotech work with soybeans has proved frustrating. Researchers lost a couple years when they tried packing bits of DNA onto tiny gold particles, and then used a 22-calibre cartridge literally to shoot the genes into specially-prepared soybean cells. They've now given up that approach, but are making fast strides by using a microbe called agrobacterium. In nature, the microbe causes disease and tumours by creeping through a plant's cell wall and disrupting its DNA.
Simmonds and her team have learned how to use the microbe to carry new genes inside the soybean cell. "We're working intensively to find ways to improve the method," Simmonds says.
Scientists have learned that they can only inject genes into the growing point of tiny soybean seedlings. They can't use leaf tissue, as they can in crops such as tobacco.
They're also learning how to grow the tiny soybean plants in the laboratory, although Simmonds says they have to learn much more about everything from how to fertilize the young plants to how much light to give them.
At least now, however, researchers can focus on a method they're sure can work, Simmonds says. "We're moving slowly, but we're getting there." - TB
Fertilizer up, up, up
World-wide demand for fertilizer is expected to rise four per
cent this year to accommodate growing world demand for food
and fibre production. Speaking at the Canadian Federation of
Agriculture's annual meeting in Ottawa earlier this month,
Roger Larson, Managing Director of the Canadian Fertilizer
Institute, dashed hopes of cheaper product.
He said the fertilizer industry has seen a pre-tax return on investment of only 7.5 per cent during the past decade. "In the same way that farmers have had a very difficult time over the last 10 years I think the fertilizer industry has shared that pain. I don't think we should apologize because the world demand for our products, which we produce very efficiently and very competitively in a free trade environment, internationally is better today."
Demand was up one per cent to 122 million nutrient tonnes for the 1994-95 crop year, marking a turn around of a previous five-year decline caused mostly by the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
Larson told delegates that consumption is still well below the peak of 145 million tonnes used for the 1988-89 crop. That year, farmers used six million tonnes of nitrogen, nine million of phosphate and eight million of potash nutrients. "We are anticipating a growth of four to five per cent in Canada this year and over five per cent in the U.S. as they plant corn fence row to fence row," Larson explained. To meet demand, Canada's fertilizer producers have boosted nitrogen production by 8.6 per cent. - RI
Soymilk maker rejects "cow" complaints
By ROBERT IRWIN
Canada's dairy industry has concerns, but this spring fresh soymilk is coming to Ontario, Quebec and Maritime homes, according to Ottawa-based ProSoya Inc. The company says it will need 300 to 500 tonnes of organically grown soybeans annually, to supply its 1,000-litre-per-hour plant on the east side of Canada's capital.
It will be offering local growers contracts carrying a premium of $0.05 to $0.08 per pound. "Ontario beans are among the best in the world," explains ProSoya Director of engineering Brian Harrigan.
Extended life soymilk, packaged in Tetra Paks, is already sold in health food stores and some grocery outlets. ProSoya is aiming for the fresh market.
Harrigan says the new product will be kept refrigerated. It will be further processed and distributed in standard gable milk cartons by an existing dairy.
Harrigan won't publicly identify the dairy because final contracts aren't signed. He is bracing for a backlash from the dairy industry too.
Harrigan dismisses Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) objections to the company's trademark of the words soyacow and soymilk. "The word soymilk has been in use for hundreds of years." He also cites words such as coconut milk and Milk of Magnesia as precedents. Dairy Farmers of Canada officials were unavailable for comment.
"We would prefer that names associated with dairy products such as milk and cow be restricted to dairy product use," says Dairy Farmers of Ontario chairman John Core. Core says Harrigan's Milk of Magnesia example is "really stretching it." However he does concede that soymilk and coconut milk may be acceptable in parts of the world which lack a strong dairy presence.
Harrigan says Canadian processors and packagers of conventional milk like the new product, which, he predicts, will boost their sales. He thinks dairy milk sales have peaked and face further erosion with free trade.
"Milk doesn't have its pristine image anymore. It's being questioned whether it's even good for you."
Dairies will be able to take the pure soymilk produced by ProSoya's stainless steel "cow" and create soy beverages. They can add ingredients such as carrageen and oils for texture, and flavours such as chocolate, sugar, and vanilla.
Like the Tetra Pak product, it will be subject to the Ultra High Temperature process to extend shelf life.
ProSoya is aiming for the same selling price as cow's milk or possibly slightly lower. "We're trying to target the lactose-intolerant people, which is about 20 per cent of Canadians," Harrigan explains. He says their market also includes health food enthusiasts as well as people simply looking for an alternative beverage.
In December, 1995, sister company Pacific ProSoya, in British Columbia, launched a similar product which is marketed in the United States under the brand name Silk. The western product is also used by processor Jersey Farms to produce soy yogurt. Harrigan maintains it's too soon to predict Pacific's market share or determine any possible impact on the dairy industry. "The first people you're going to get are the lactose-intolerant people who are just waiting for something like this to come along and are attracted to this fresh image. They know they are going to get something which hasn't been dead for a year."
Because of the soybean varieties used, traditional Asian soymilks are often said to have a bean flavour. The only demand for those products in North America is among Asians. Harrigan says the flavour of new Canadian bean varieties developed by Agriculture and Agri Food Canada at the nearby Central Canada Experimental Farm has created broader soymilk appeal.
ProSoya makes milk by grinding soybeans in water. Harrigan terms this an "oxygen-free cold grinding process," which, he says, controls flavour-destroying enzymes, and conserves the maximum protein possible.
The company could have used a process known as hot blanching but felt that would affect the healthy product image because addition of a chemical would be required. Hot grinding was another option but tests showed it produced a chalky flavour. Top-quality certified organic soybeans are an important part of the production equation. Milk solids are determined in large part by the speed of the process.
It can vary between four and 15 per cent. At 7.5 per cent solids, one pound of beans yields one U.S. gallon of soymilk. The wet fibrous residue called okara can be used in bakeries or as a livestock protein supplement. ProSoya is studying drying options to stop sending their okara to a landfill. Harrigan says the okara from Pacific ProSoya goes to a swine farm.
In addition to the Ottawa plant, Harrigan is projecting demand for several others across Ontario. Equipment cost is about $150,000 plus facilities.
At a press conference in the Russian embassy in Ottawa a few months ago, Russian officials were lavish in their praise of ProSoya. Assoy, the Russian soybean processors association, has successfully used ProSoya technology for several plants in the Krasnodar Region of the former Soviet Union. Over 100,000 Russians have recently consumed foods such as soymilk and tofu for the first time.
Harrigan says future ProSoya research and development is focused on reducing production costs. The company holds patents on the process in Europe and North America.
He says the company found the Russian legal system makes it impractical to bother with patents in that country. "They could just take it and run, anytime, anyway."
One injured child is still too many
Farm fatalities are nothing new to 33-year-old Ph.D William
Pickett, who counts them for a living.
Pickett, with the Centre for Injury Prevention at the public health unit, Queen's University, Kingston, grew up in farm country in St. George, Brant county. His father was the county coroner, and several close family friends died in farm accidents.
He's now in the business of preventing them, and had some encouraging figures at the Farm Safety Association's annual meeting in Toronto earlier this month. While farming still ranks among the leading killer industries, child injuries and deaths on the farm in Ontario have declined every year since 1987, according to findings from the centre which will be released shortly. In 1987, 48 children up to age 15 were sent to hospital from farm machinery injuries; in 1993, only 10 were.
Overall, the number of fatal work-related farm injuries in Ontario dropped to 19 last year, the lowest ever recorded, said Farm Safety Association past-president Bob Allen. For Pickett, the figures on length of stay in hospital are the most telling: up to 130 days for a pto-related injury, with a mean of 10.5 days. At $500 a day in direct costs alone, not including surgery, the cost to the health system comes to $5,250. "In the end, it's tens of thousands of dollars per injury. The economic arguments are strong," says Pickett. He attributes the drop in child injuries to "increased awareness" and safer farm machinery.
The big challenge is to get the safety message across to farm operators, he says. "They account for most of the injuries and deaths, especially on family farm. They're a hard group to get at."
In tracking farm hospitalizations back to 1985 and deaths back
to 1980, the Centre for Injury Prevention also found:
- Machinery-related injuries dropped from 1993 to 1994, but
non-machinery-related injuries increased fourfold;
- The vast majority of victims are men in the 16 to 64-age
group;
- Almost half of fatal injuries are pto-related, followed by
machinery, drowning and suffocation, vehicle, and farm
animals.
- One-third of machinery-caused injuries involve tractors,
with augers accounting for seven per cent, combines five per
cent, and hay elevators, farm wagons and balers around 4.5 per
cent.
- Tractor rollover injuries increased from 1992 to 1993, but
run-over injuries decreased;
- In the same period, combine-related injuries drop-ped, but
baler injuries rose. - JMM
Accident proves mower is not a toy
Campbellville Limousin breeder Barbara Parker used to give her
children rides on the family's riding mower. And she used to
cut the lawn in "ratty old running shoes".
But she and her husband Tom don't cut corners when they cut the grass these days, after a serious accident last August involving their six-year-old son Adam.
"We were on a slippery slope from the time we let him have that first ride to the time this happened," she said in a quavering voice earlier this month in Toronto, where she and her husband retold the harrowing tale to a spellbound audience at the Farm Safety Association annual meeting.
"We treated the lawnmower more like a toy - an ATV - rather than like a tractor."
Her husband still has difficulty recounting the incident that occurred on a warm Friday afternoon in August last year. They were getting ready for a family picnic in the yard, and Matt, a nephew, arrived with a riding mower because the Parkers' was broken.
Tom Parker and his father took their eyes off Adam for a few seconds to load some grain in the barn, but by then it was too late. "Adam hops up onto the back of the riding lawnmower," said his father, "rides for 10 yards on the machine, reaches for the steering wheel, but gets the gearshift. Pulls it, the machine jerks backwards, he falls off, and the machine runs over his foot. This last sequence has taken 10 seconds.
"Matt stops the machine, and I see fear and pain in my son's face. I rush over to Adam as he sits in severe shock. Panic and fear rush through my brain. Dad takes out his jackknife, and cuts off the shoe, revealing a large, gaping wound behind the toes. By now, I'm hysterical, and don't know what to do." Because of the location of the farm, the Parkers decided to drive Adam to emergency themselves, rather than calling 911. A subsequent ambulance driver would tell them they should have called an ambulance.
Once they had admitted Adam, a surgeon described the wound: the mower blade had crossed over the foot, carving a one-cm-deep cut just behind the toes, severing all the tendons, and all five metatarsal (foot) bones. Another blade had sliced the big toe in half laterally. The worst-case scenario, they were told, would be amputation of the foot in front of the wound. Most likely, the big toe would be difficult to save.
"I went home to a night of mindwrenching and very little sleep," said Tom Parker, who had to be put on medication to recover from the stress.
"My world came to an abrupt stop that Friday afternoon,"
said
Barbara Parker, describing Adam's transferral to Sick
Childrens Hospital in Toronto, where a successful skin graft
was performed. After 27 days and countless video games in
hospital, Adam Parker was allowed to go home. Today, he walks
"reasonably normally", says his mother, and has been swimming,
skiing, and skating - though she says the physical and mental
stress on her son is harder to measure.
Today, the Parkers realize they were the lucky ones, but they say they want to tell their story to caution other parents: "If our account stops one injury, it's worth it." By the time Adam returned home, his entire hospital stay may have cost up to $50,000, says Barbara Parker - "all preventable".
For the Parkers, it was a lesson learned the hard way. Tom Parker urges everyone on the farm to attend farm safety clinics, and take first aid courses. All mowers should have safety switches to prevent reversing the machine when the blades are on, he says. His machine had one; the one his nephew was riding didn't.
There should be a plan on the farm or home developed so family members know what to do in the event of an accident. "Develop a safety culture," he said, "so people are rewarded for being safe.
"We have a responsibility to children that we have good safety habits."
His final message to other parents: "It can happen." - JMM