On a rainy day

Having posted on poor growth of sweetpotatoes at a field last month, I found there were a little bit better harvest of sweetpotatoes in the other fields recently, despite of apparently overgrowth of the vine. It is always miraculous how they grow and are cropped. Before it gets too cool, the rest should be cropped. I should go on working hard in the farm.

Plants of taro are ready to be harvested as well. Potatoes, spinach, broccoli or carrots are growing. They may be harvested by Dec. 

The global warming is becoming closer to us. The summer vegetables have been affected by it. I have seen several vlogs of farmers who complain of poor harvest of summer veggies. They have been sold at higher prices at store. The fall/winter vegetables should be planted, they say, a week or two later than ususal. It seems the winter is coming quicker than before. The summer has been directly taken over to the winter. No long break of fall this year. 

Early in this hot summer, rice was run out at stores. There are a number of reasons why it has occurred. One of them was the relative crop failure due to the abnormally high temperature last summer. The price of rice has risen even by 50%. That high cost is still carried on despite newly harvested rice is in the market now. The cost of rice has been kept irrationally low. Rice farmers have had hard time with the cost for years. On the other hand, the main food for people in our country, rice, should be reasonable. It is an issue that politics should handle with. It should be argued at the other post.

I would point out that the government is trying to replace rice plants to a new spieces or its crossbred descendants. It is a newly developed one which absorbs Cadmium, Cd, much less than previous old spieces. 

As a researcher in agriculture says, there is an area which is polluted with Cd. The national agricultural research center has developed a new rice spieces, which irradiation of heavy particle beam inactivated the gene responsible for absorption of Cd. They are trying to replace the ordinary species to this new one or its descendants. Cd pollution is limited only certain areas in our country. The new species has another serious defect. It is genetically lowered in absorption of another mineral Mn. Mn has an important role in in photosynthesis as well as resilience against pathogens. When this new species is grown, they should add Mn as a fertilizer component. Relative Mn deficit could cause growth issue and liability for infections. Those new species might not grow well in global warming. 

Irradiation could damage the other genes unknown yet. It may cause the other serious issues. Natural selection occurs in a long time scale. Our ancestors have chosen species which work well for us. Artificial gene manipulation with irradiation could result in "magnificient" failure in the future. 

Why do they popularize this new species of rice in our country? To get more money! The farmers, subsequently the consumers of such rice, should pay for the pantent. There should be other factors involved in this new rice species. They are invariably related with money!

OK, that's about it. Even though I won't renew posts so often, I am getting along fine. Today, the rain has kept me indoor and let me write this post.