Tag Archives: fungus

Beaver Ponds, Yellow Dog, Gretchen and her Sycamore 2021-02-20

It’s good to get a little exercise.

[Log, Fungus, Yellow Dog, Sycamore]
Log, Fungus, Yellow Dog, Sycamore

Gretchen likes heaving logs under the red maples.

[Gretchen and her log]
Gretchen and her log

Beaver Pond

Birds and dogs.

[Gretchen and a beaver pond]
Gretchen and a beaver pond

Fungus

We could get it down with a ladder.

[Gretchen and the lion's mane]
Gretchen and the lion’s mane

But we left it there to grow again.

This moss grows all the time.

Woods

In her habitat.

[Gretchen in the woods with vines]
Gretchen in the woods with vines

Yellow Woods Dog

Yellow Dog knows all the woods paths.

[This way?]
This way?

Upper Pond

This is also a beaver pond now, only larger than the others.

[Quite full]
Quite full

Yellow Pond Dog

Dogs like mud.

[Yellow Dog in the pond]
Yellow Dog in the pond

Sycamore

That tree was knee-high when we transplanted it.

[Gretchen and her Sycamore]
Gretchen and her Sycamore

-jsq

Smut no more: tasty corn fungus!

Corn smut a delicacy? Well, if truffles can be, why not?

Jill Neimark, the salt, 24 August 2015, Scourge No More: Chefs Invite Corn Fungus To The Plate,

One evening last July, Nat Bradford walked along rows of White Bolita Mexican corn at his Sumter, S.C., farm, and nearly wept. All 1,400 of the corn plants had been overtaken almost overnight by corn smut, recalls Bradford, who’s also a landscape architect. The smut, from a fungus called Ustilago maydis, literally transforms each corn kernel into a bulbous, bulging bluish-grey gall. It is naturally present in the soil and can be lofted easily into the air and onto plants.

Smut is considered a scourge by most U.S. farmers, and it goes by the nickname “devil’s corn.” Just one discolored kernel typically renders an ear completely unsellable….

Yep, that’s the way we’ve usually considered it. But keep reading: Continue reading →

Animal miscarriages from new fungus or virus in Roundup-read crops?

Jill Richardson publishes a letter from Col. (Ret.) Don M. Huber, Emeritus Professor, Purdue University, who is APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS). It begins:
Dear Secretary Vilsack:
A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn-suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!
What’s an “electron microsope pathogen”? Continue reading →