Removing the Pests from the Plants

Metabolic Stress Disinfection and Disinfestation suffocates pests by exposing them to cycles of vacuum and pressurized carbon dioxide. The processes in which scientists and farmers are working together in order to create food which has less amounts of harmful chemicals has led them to interesting solution. Using pressurized carbon dioxide will allow for a fruit like apples to be kept fresh without having to use risky pesticides. This article is very interesting to me because I have worked on a farm for the last 3 years. It is mainly an orchard and the different ways this farm uses to keep fruit fresh is with low-pesticide management. The farm I work at uses a co-operative program with Cornell University in order to maintain the safe amount of pesticides, while also being able to grow the fruit without the fear that all of the crops will turn bad. This kind of method of food protection allows for the utilization of the air by reducing the pressure.

This article relates to the topic of Ecology as the man-made impacts are becoming more apparent on the environment. Curbing these impacts has become a main priority in order to live in a more sustainable environment. Issues of environmental fragmentation and pollution impacts have been a part of class. This makes this article very relavent to the topics which are found in Ecology. It is about the connection to the natural world and how new scientific research has led to curbing harmful impacts on the environment. Fruit and other crops cannot grow in such environments like New York without some management or else a majority would die off before they make it to people's diner tables or even the grocery store.

This article gives all the factual information about what these scientists are doing and how it will overall benefit the farmers' ability to grow crops. It explains the vacuum technology that will be used and explains how it is not new, but the application of this technology is what is new. It pumps out the air and allows for the oxygen supply to be depleted which in turn removes the predators to these plants. This technology of the MSDD is much safer than the chemicals which are used in pesticides that kill the insects that try and eat the crops, but then also slowly ends up killing the humans who the food was meant for.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0105-debugging_your_food.htm
Picture: http://www.colonista.com/my_weblog/2010/07/pesticides-scary-stuff.html

Extra Credit
April 23, 2011
Principles of Ecology
Richard Distel