Farming: Feed the hungry world

Rose rosette disease is an untreatable rose disease caused by the Rose rosette virus (RRV), and is spread and introduced into the rose during feeding by the rose leaf curl mite (Phyllocoptes fructiplilus). This extremely small eriophyid mite feeds on cell sap of the tender stems and leaf petioles. The rose leaf curl mite alone causes little damage while feeding, but if it is a carrier of RRV, symptoms begin to appear in the rose typically within one to three months.

Roses exhibit reddened terminal growth on infected branches, and the stems become thicker and more succulent than those on unaffected parts of the plant. These stems exhibit an abnormally high number of pliable thorns, which may be either green or red. Rose leaves that develop on infected branches are smaller than normal and may be deformed similarly to herbicide injury by 2,4-D. Lateral branches may grow excessively from main stems and create a witch’s broom symptom quite like glyphosate (Roundup™) injury on roses. Flowering is reduced, and the petals may be distorted and fewer in number.

Rose with Rose Rosette Disease showing symptoms of  reddened new growth, thicker stem, excessive thorns, and smaller leaves.
Meg Williamson, Plant Problem Clinic, Clemson University

These symptoms generally become evident in the late spring to early summer and progress during the growing season. Once the rose becomes infected, RRV moves throughout the plant and the entire plant is infectious. By the time symptoms are evident in a rose, it already may have spread to adjacent plants by the movement of the eriophyid mites. Infected plants typically die within a couple of years.

Prevention & Treatment: The wild multiflora rose is very susceptible to the rose rosette disease, so any nearby wild plants should be removed and promptly disposed. Any infected, cultivated roses should be immediately removed, then burned or bagged. Also remove any roots, which might re-sprout later. Do not leave an uprooted infected plant in the garden, as the mites may leave this rose for other nearby plants. Always space rose plants so they do not touch.

Because RRV is systemic within the infected rose plants, grafting asymptomatic stems onto other rose plants will transmit the virus. Pruners used on diseased plants must be disinfested with rubbing alcohol or a dilute bleach solution before being used on uninfected plants, as sap on the pruners is contaminated with the virus.

To reduce the spread of the eriophyid mites from the site of an infected rose, nearby roses can be treated with a bifenthrin spray every two weeks between April and September. This may prevent additional plants from becoming diseased. Examples of products containing bifenthrin are Hi-Yield Bug Blaster Bifenthrin 2.4 Concentrate or Ready-to-Spray, Hi-Yield Bug Blaster II Turf Termite & Ornamental Insect Control Concentrate, and Ortho Bug-B-Gon Max Lawn & Garden Insect Killer Concentrate. Check product labels for the correct active ingredient. Follow label directions for use.

If you look at fields full of flowering crops or wild flowers in the countryside, or at garden and park flowers in the cities, you are not only looking at beauty but also at gold – thousands of tons of valuable honey. Liquid gold sitting there, all for you! If you don’t go and get it, the flowers will die at the end of the season and all those tons of honey will go to waste. All that money will simply have dried up in front of your eyes. If, on the other hand, you have bees, they will go and get it for you for free, and you can then either eat it or sell it or both.

Bees are probably the only livestock that use other people’s land without permission – and those landowners welcome them. It is a win-win situation for the bee and for everyone else. Your bees are happy carrying out their work; you can enjoy your hobby or business, and if you want to you can make a profit; the farmers get their crops pollinated and so they make a profit; the shops obtain food to sell and they make a profit; the general public have food to eat; and the government is happy that its agricultural and environmental sectors are running smoothly and that somewhere along the line they will be able to raise some tax.

Don’t forget that governments regard the whole set-up as so important that they are willing to spend millions on ensuring that the status quo does not change and that nothing happens to harm it. Recent research in the USA has valued crops that require pollination by honey-bees at an estimated $24 billion annually, and the value of commercial bee pollination on contracts at around $10 billion annually. These are huge figures by any standard and they show that bees are big business.

Honey sale value, on the other hand, is much less, at $285 million annually in the USA. However, now that hard clinical trials are showing that certain types of honey can provide antibiotic wound treatments more effectively and with fewer side-effects than conventional treatments, this non-pollination side of beekeeping has become a rapidly growing industry. Active manuka honey has been shown to beat the MRSA super-bug with no side-effects to the patient and is used in burn dressings. Buckwheat honey has been found in clinical trials to be more effective as a cough treatment than many over-the-counter cough medicines. Honey is no longer old Gran’s remedy for colds or an ‘alternative’ therapy. It is now a mainstream medicine available on national health systems and used in hospitals in the UK, the USA and other countries.

But bees sting, don’t they? And that hurts, doesn’t it? Other than producing honey, bees are best known for their tendency to sting on sight. In fact, it is not in a bee’s interest to sting for the sake of it because they die in the process and they will avoid doing so unless in defence of their nest, which of course is why beekeepers are stung. All beekeepers will be stung during their beekeeping careers. This is a fact and it is also a fact that it is painful. But it is not very painful and the pain doesn’t last for long.

Bee sting ‘cures’ rely on this fact. By the time you apply the patented bee-sting cure bought from the snake oil stall at the market (which, technically, can’t cure anything unless it’s an anaesthetic), the pain would be just about to disappear anyway.

Most beekeepers will tell you that bee stings are more or less of no concern to them and that, if you are well clothed and use calm bees, stings will be few and far between. For a very few, however, there is a danger. Allergy to insect venom does exist and can be fatal if the person stung goes into anaphylactic shock. This is extremely rare, however, and one statistic indicates that you are more likely to die from a horse falling on you than from a bee sting. Because there is a very remote possibility of suffering a fatal allergic reaction, many beekeepers carry with them an epi-pen injector for emergency use. This requires a prescription in most countries.

The Punjab Provincial Co-operative Bank has started disbursement of Rs 2.5 billion agriculture loans for sowing, growing and maturing of Kharif crops 2014 including cotton, rice, sugarcane, maize, vegetables, fodder and fruits orchards.

Source: Business Recorder