Links CONTACT:  podcast@worldorganicnews.com   Self-fuelling boat starts 6-year world trip using green energy, fuel cells — News http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-fK1 Researchers put some of the wild back into domesticated wheat — Scientific Inquirer       http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-fKd       Episode 65 #worldorganicnews 2017 05 22 http://worldorganicnews.libsyn.com/65-worldorganicnews-2017-05-22 Seaweed shown to reduce 99% methane from cattle http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-fKl Less Mowing, More Pollinators — Bee Branch Farm http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-fKT **** This is the World Organic News for the week ending 17th of July 2017. Jon Moore reporting! This week a fuel cell, solar and wind powered boat, ancient wheat genes, seaweed for ruminants and do less to protect more! From the blog News comes the post: SELF-FUELLING BOAT STARTS 6-YEAR WORLD TRIP USING GREEN ENERGY, FUEL CELLS This vessel is covered topsides with solar panels and has a couple of vertical axis wind turbines. From the post: Quote Energy Observer will use its solar panels, wind turbines and a hydrogen fuel cell system to power its trip. The 5 million-euro (USD 5.25 million) boat heads off from Paris toward the Atlantic today. (July 16 2017) The futuristic-looking 30.5-meter (100-foot) boat will rely on sun or wind during the day and tap into its hydrogen reservoirs at night. It produces its own hydrogen through electrolysis of seawater. Originally designed in 1983, the boat enjoyed a successful career in open-sea sailing races before skippers Frederic Dahirel and Victorien Erussard and a French research institute converted it into the Energy Observer project. End Quote This vessel should not be necessary. Set up as a demonstration to show the practicalities of mixed source renewable power, it has some value. But surely we are at a point now where we no longer need to “prove” the viability of these technologies? Indeed the idea of solar and wind combinations was bigger back in the 1980s and 1990s. My uncle has an off grid place where he has both and has had for twenty plus years. As he said, usually when its cloudy there will be some wind. So I applaud the Energy Observer project but let’s get this sorted people. The technologies are extant, the price is dropping and need is urgent! Our next post is entitled Researchers put some of the wild back into domesticated wheat from the blog Scientific Inquirer. As climate changes, the industrialised, narrow gene pool in domestic cereals has come under some pressures already. Whilst they are good for producing large quantities of food in relatively consistent conditions, they don’t handle change well. Back in episode 65 on the 22 May this year I discussed the flooding of the Svalbard seed bank in Norway. Link in the show notes. These seed banks hold ancient forms of the modern cereals. Researchers at the University of Kansas studied the genome of an ancient variety of wheat and compared it with modern cultivars. Quote: “The relative of wheat is called wild emmer, which is one of the founding crops of human society,” said Eduard Akhunov, professor of plant pathology and wheat genomics at Kansas State University. “Wild emmer was one of the first crops that was domesticated 10,000 years ago, which was a critical step in moving from hunting and gathering to an agricultural society.” End Quote. By having this ancient genome and comparing it with modern varieties, traits such as drought and heat tolerance can be spotted. With this knowledge, better breeding programs can adjust modern varieties by backcrossing and so. Another quote. “The small segments of the wild emmer chromosomes are being transferred to bread wheat, and these segments can carry some useful genes in there, and they can be used in (K-State) breeding programs,” Akhunov said. “It is a valuable source for improving end-use quality of wheat, especially grain composition and the mineral content, and protein content,” he added. “There are a number of genes that are known to improve this trait, and they