The News:

The, a novel technique to give double yields in rice production using less water, is gaining acceptance in parts of India, making India the second in popularity of SRI after Cambodia. Owing to certain apprehensions, however, acceptability of the concept has been a bit slow here as per Norman T. Uphoff of Cornell University in the US. He is Hyderabad on October 7 2006 as guest of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.

In Cambodia SRI became immensely popular and India too is said to have conducive environment for its dramatic growth. In Cambodia, it reportedly grew up from 28 farmers in 2000 to 55,000 this year.

How it works?

System of Rice Intensification, known as SRI is a methodology for increasing the productivity of irrigated rice by changing the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients says SRIs official web site. It claims that these practices help ensure health of soil as well as plants, support greater root growth and nurtures soil microbes in abundance and diversity. It incorporates a number of agro-ecological principles with good scientific foundations as detailed below.

• Rice plant seedlings are transplanted very young usually just 8-12 days old, with just two small leaves, with due care for minimum trauma to the roots. Only one per seedling per hill instead of 3-4 together and with greater spacing to avoid root competition, encourage greater root and canopy growth
• Good quality and healthy soil is the key to best production. Soil is kept moist, instead of being flooded, but well-drained and aerated with good structure and enough organic matter to support increased biological activity.
• While a minimum of water is applied during the vegetative growth period, only a thin layer of water is maintained on the field during the flowering and grain filling stage. Alternatively, flooding and draining the fields in 3-5 day cycles is also followed with good results.
• Soil nutrients need augmented, preferably with compost, made from any available biomass. Better quality compost such as with manure can give additional yield advantages. Chemical fertilizer is discourages as it not good for active microbial growth. With SRI approach, build up of soil fertility is required over time, not much initially. Greater root exudation in SRI, enhances soil fertility too.
• In non-flooded fields, weeding is necessary at least once or twice, starting 10-12 days after transplanting, and preferably 3 or 4 times before the canopy closes. Rotary hoe, a simple, inexpensive, push-weeder device aerates the soil as well while weeds are eliminated. They are not removed but left in the soil to decompose and enhance fertility.
• Last but not least, to take local factors and farmers knowledge into account to evaluated field conditions and allow suitable variations.

So What to do Now?

A pioneer of SRI the world over, Prof. Uphoff suggests five things that the Governments could do to ramp up SRI and improve its acceptability among farmers. It is true not only for India but equally rlevent to other developing nations in tropics, where rice could be a major food crop. Prof. Uphoff himself said that rice is the food crop of future.

• The measures suggested include :
• Reliable supply of good and appropriate implements,
• Identification and honing of a few visible and well recognizable master farmers from among their community, who can pass on the methodology to others,
• Close scrutiny of water and soil biology,
• Formation of biomass and promotion of indigenous rice.

Indias national institutions and agriculture universities continue to resist SRI, steeped in a belief that only gene-centric approach enhances production of rice or for that matter any crop! Believe it, even some of Prof. Uphoffs own colleagues at Cornell University are still not convinced of SRI! Deeply entrenched conventional approach of treating farmer as a dumb person who requires the technology push, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, for higher yields is difficult to remove from the Indian system. In contrast, based on SRI the yields reportedly have doubled or even trebled in places like China.

One more stumbling block to the growth of SRI is more labour requirements. However, the appreciable fact is in Madagascar, original home of SRI experiment, and in Cambodia the labour requirement was brought down to a mere 4 per cent within four years of switching to SRI whereas, in Tamil Nadu state of India, it dropped to just eight per cent after first year. Need to say more?

The News:

Mautam is the Mizo term for the gregarious flowering of bamboo in Mizoram state of India. The fallout of last years Mautam is emerging now. It has resulted in an explosion of rat population, devastating the crop fields, raising a gloomy spectre of a famine. Reportedly, armies of rodents have invaded paddy fields in rural Ajzawl district in the Mizoram State, Serchhip district and border areas of Manipur state.

These episode have historically been occurred in 50-year cycles, reports The Hindu according to Press Trust of India (PTI). A state Agriculture Department official confirmed reports of destruction in many parts of the State.

The Background:

Gregarious flowering (masting) may be defined as simultaneous flowering in all the culms in clump and all the clumps in a population of a particular species of bamboo spread over a large geographical area, usually followed by death of clumps. Gregarious flowering of bamboo usually occurs periodically and interestingly, the period remains constant for a species in a specific area. Different evolutionary hypotheses are propounded to explain bamboo flowering but the reason behind this unique phenomenon is yet to be understood.

India is one of the few nations, where bamboo of many dozens of species is found in millions of hectares. Gregarious flowering is not new to Indians. Scientists have predicted that gregarious flowering of bamboo will occur in an estimated 18,000 sq km of area of in the States of Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur and parts of Assam and Meghalaya during 2005-2007. The flowering is predicted to concentrate in Mizoram.

In India, gregarious flowering of bamboo was recorded for the last time in the states of Mizoram, Tripura and Barak Valley of Assam in 1959. The extensive flowering is never seen as a boon for forest produce, instead people dreaded it and they are scared to death about the consequences. But why? Well, reads on!

Flowering of bamboo begins in September-October just after the South-West monsoon. The handful of initial inflorescences grows within a few weeks turning whole clumps into huge flowering clusters. The clumps will die after the flowers bore fruit. This is called as seed-shed and occurs in December. The thin layer of seeds that can be seen on the forest floor by January increases to great quantities cover the forest literally in a blanket of seeds, due to extensive flowering of a particular bamboo species spread across large areas simultaneously.

This unusual large scale seed-shed -- seem to demonstrate the rule of ecology -- attracts seed predators, mostly rodent species and their population explodes abnormally, due to abundant food supply. Now, when the summer rains start, the seeds germinate and in a few days, the forest floor is turned into a veritable green carpet of bamboo seedlings. The sudden cut in food forces the rodents to seek alternative sources. And they venture out of bamboo forests in millions and attack nearby farms. They gorge on standing crops, plunder the granaries resulting in famine in the wake of gregarious bamboo flowering.

Often, this led to socio-economic unrest and law and order problems. In 1959, such a severe famine left a fear psychosis in the minds of the people in certain affected areas. Creation of Mizo National Front (MNF) in India, in the sixties is often cited as a direct fallout, which culminated in the eventual creation of a separate Mizoram state!

Present Scenario:

Now, with the Muli Bamboo in a spate of flowering, the government started early efforts to contain the damages. The Rain Forest Research Institute (RFRI), Jorhat, Assam with the help of experts drawn from different national and international organizations, has chalked out plans. They recommended to focus on extraction and utilisation of bamboo before they flower. A detailed survey and mapping of bamboo resources in the N-E India is done and a bamboo flowering database is also planned, by roping in certain international organisations like the International Bamboo and Rattan Research Institute (INBAR), Beijing.

Such was the scale of efforts, that even the State and National Highways, inland waterways are gearing up to the task and paper mills are readying to consume only bamboo for production till flowering stops. It is also planned to set up mini-mechanical pulping units at forest areas to make high-density pulp sheets and blocks for economic transportation. Conversion of bamboo into high value products like laminated board, composite boards, railway sleeper boards, charcoal etc.

As these efforts are do not contain the menace 100%, the reports of crop damage are still appearing.

A new method of biochemical analysis of fluids found by an international science team headed in part by Arizona State University researchers has spurred a new hope for advancement in environmental protection and medicine. The technique, named "digital magnetofluidics," is seen as capable of doing a more rapid, accurate and less costly analyses of water and biological fluids such as blood & urine etc that need very small amounts of fluids.

As Prof. Antonia Garcia from the Harrington Department of Bioengineering in ASU's Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering (who is one of the scientists and engineers developing microfluidic and test-surface techniques) explains, the new method makes it possible for tiny drops of fluids to be manipulated on a silicon chip such that they produce clearer pictures of the DNA, viruses and bacteria and other chemicals present in liquids. A significant improvement is hoped for in areas like prognosis and diagnosis of medical conditions as well as testing of water sources for environmental threats.

The method makes use of nanoscale surface patterns to create a "superhydrophobic" (or water-repellent) surface on which extremely tiny droplets of fluids are collected. The surface is formed by mimicking the natural self-cleaning process as is shown by the leaves of the Lotus plant.

Water and biological fluids put on the surface usually form a ball and the magnetic field produced by introducing tiny magnetic particles into the droplets of the fluids keeps the ball from rolling off the surface.

This magnetic field helps in controlling the fluids by magnetic force and helps move them over tips of nanowires (who themselves have a diameter of 200 atoms and are less than a hundredth of the width of human hair) with a high accuracy level.

As Prof. Garcia further explains, We knew we had the perfect surface on which to analyze drops of blood and other biological fluids because the trapped air between the wires never allows for much of the fluid to come into contact with the surface. This is crucial for an accurate analysis since it bars the chemicals in the droplet from reacting with the chemical compounds on the surface material which would lead to contamination the test sample of fluid.

The process forms the core of what the researchers call "lab on a chip" technology, which will enables scientists, health care professionals and environmental experts to obtain precise biochemical test results with only miniscule amounts of fluids.

Detection of disease symptoms and environmentally hazardous materials can be made much better that it now by manipulating droplets and preventing contamination of the samples. The expenses on testing are reduced as it makes it possible to test things using very small droplets instead of requiring larger amounts of fluid for testing of very expensive chemicals.

The advantages that the method puts forward are many, the most important being saving of time. Secondly, the technique will allow production of compact and portable testing instruments that will work fast while still requiring less power.

Currently, the major goal of the technique is to refine it so as to create point-of-care devices that would mean rapid diagnoses for people who live far from hospitals, or in providing fast medical analysis wherever emergency medical care is required. The future seems bright as the research may lead to the development of more microfluidic devices that could allow as many as 20 to 30 various tests to be performed using a single, tiny drop of blood.

Seven new articles are published in Genetics section:

• Unique Properties of Stem Cells
• The Vast Potential of Human Cloning to Save Lives
• The Rise and Fall of Stem Cell Pioneer Hwang Woo Suk
• Snuppy the Cloned Dog is Invention of the Year
• Remembering Dolly the Sheep
• More Countries Around the World Explore Human Cloning
• Ending the Human Cloning Debate