Hospital greenhouse grows healthy food for community.

Hospital greenhouse grows healthy food for community. Tiny peppers, with leaves waving proudly, may not hold a whole lot of meaning for the average New Jersey backyard gardener. But in the South Ward of Newark, inside less than 2,000 square feet of space, this greenhouse is changing the way of life for a community. “You can’t teach people how to eat if you don’t have the food to provide to them. So, down in an urban environment like Newark, or what they consider a food desert, there is a lot of food insecurity. So this is a way to tie everything together and connect it with your health and wellness,” said Barbara Mintz, senior vice-president for healthy living and community engagement at RWJ Barnabas Health. The Beth Greenhouse, located just next door to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, pumps out more than 10,000 pounds of food a year. Employees teach nutrition education, farming and cooking. It’s got all the staples, including kale, zucchini, tomatoes and basil. But in a unique format, the hospital sells it right in the outpatient lobby once a week. “We harvest it every week and we bring it into our farmers market, which is in the lobby of our hospital, every Thursday,” said Mintz. “We sell it not only to the employees, but to the community as well, patient families, visitors and so on.” Hospital greenhouse grows healthy food for community.

NatureFresh Farms develops unconventional pest management methods.

NatureFresh Farms develops unconventional pest management methods. A pest outbreak in the fall of 2016 left all bell pepper growers in the Leamington area highly concerned.

 Pepper Weevil (Anthonomus Eugenii) is an unconventional pest that a regular Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system cannot maintain and cannot be spotted by humans which makes it nearly impossible to catch early on.

 Once the pest spreads, it is essentially a death sentence for the crop as no beneficial bug is strong enough to combat it and sprays just irritate the pest forcing it to reproduce more. 

 Cam Lyons, Research and Development and IPM Technician at NatureFresh Farms, realized that there had to be a solution and conducted countless development sessions.

 “Dogs are a very intelligent animal. Many worker dogs are trained to recognize and discover scents associated with drugs or bombs, so it seemed possible to train a dog to recognize pepper weevil.”

 After a lot of research, NatureFresh Farms adopted Chili, a 15-month old female Belgian Shepherd who was bred as a working dog. Chili underwent 8 weeks of training and was certified by The American Working Dog Association who verified that Chili was the first dog certified for pest related scent detection on a farm. 

 This certification also allows Chili to work in the farm without any food safety concern.

USDA helping growers build success with new technology.

USDA helping growers build success with new technology. Everyone loves that burst of flavor you get when you eat a fresh fruit or vegetable. But we often don’t think about all the research, propagating, and growing by plant breeders that happens prior to giving us that great food experience. Plant breeders work hard to develop new varieties, which are crucial to continued agricultural production, at levels that provide us with food security. New varieties help address the challenges we face - from plant pest and disease outbreaks to an increasing world population. USDA

Smartphone camera used to estimate vegetable taste.

Smartphone camera used to estimate vegetable taste. Makuta Amenity Co developed a smartphone application that enables to estimate the taste and nutrients of vegetables and fruits just by taking their pictures with a smartphone camera. 

 The application analyzes the images of the external appearances of agricultural products such as vegetables and fruits. 

It creates histograms of the three primary colors of visible light and estimates the taste of the targeted agricultural product based on the correlation between the histograms and taste data that has been quantified by using a taste sensor in advance. 

As a taste sensor, Makuta Amenity used a system developed by Intelligent Sensor Technology Inc, a venture firm that develops taste sensors. Japan

7 top tips for calf pneumonia vaccination.

7 top tips for calf pneumonia vaccination. Calf pneumonia is the greatest single cause of morbidity and mortality in cattle in Ireland – responsible for 32% of deaths in this age group². Hence, it is a cause of major economic loss for the cattle industry. Benefits Of Vaccination Vaccination against calf pneumonia in young and growing animals is a cost-effective method when implemented as part of an overall pneumonia control plan. This plan must also address other environmental and management factors that contribute to the spread of the disease. Selecting a vaccine, which contains relevant viruses and bacteria, and observing best

Predatory bacteria: The quest for a new class of antibiotics.

Predatory bacteria: The quest for a new class of antibiotics. In 2016 the World Health Organization named antibiotic resistance as "one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today." The announcement cited a growing list of infections, such as tuberculosis and gonorrhea, that are becoming more difficult to treat each year as resistance to current antibiotic treatments increases. Yet antibiotics are essential -- without them, the human race would be plagued by persistent infections. So what is the solution to ensuring continual treatment while also addressing the alarming rise in resistance? One potential solution lies within a unique type of predatory bacteria that feeds on other bacteria, such as those that cause diseases. Predatory bacteria: The quest for a new class of antibiotics.

Bio-methane transforms from landfill waste to energy source.

Bio-methane transforms from landfill waste to energy source.Most manure just sits around. Anaerobic digesters take those piles and place them in large covered tanks and convert waste into an energy source. Chemical engineers examined the carbon footprint of anaerobic digestion. Methane is far more damaging as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide -- 25 times more so. The gas, which is produced by decomposing organic materials in the absence of air, not only traps heat efficiently but is also a health and safety hazard because it's so concentrated in landfills. About half of the landfills in the US collect and burn methane, mitigating the danger but still contributing to atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide levels. Animal manure decomposition on farms is the main contributor of methane emissions in agriculture. Repurposing that wasted gas is the focus of a new study published in the journal Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy by chemical engineers from Michigan Technological University. Specifically, they examined the carbon footprint of anaerobic digestion -- composting organics without air -- which can be used to redirect methane into a usable energy source.