More About the Uberlandia Carrot That Sets Seed in the Tropics
Fruit Fly Trap Made From Basil
Suggestions to Help Agroforesters Reduce Seedling Losses From Termites
Appropriate Technology Juice Pasteurizer
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More About the Uberlandia Carrot That Sets Seed in the Tropics
“Carrots do not usually flower in the tropics. Eighty years ago a group of Portuguese growers planted carrots from Portugal and the Madeira Island in the southernmost state of Brazil. Some of these plants flowered and produced seed. Plant breeders from Sao Paulo and Brasilia independently collected seeds and developed varieties called ‘tropics’ and 'Brasilia.’
"I used these two in my work at the Federal Universities of Maranhao and, currently, of Uberlandia. For five generations I selected the best carrots using the following criteria: (1) size between 12-18 cm, (2) parallel sides, (3) red xylem, (4) resistance to local diseases, (5) late flowering, (6) no green on the top of the root. I call the resulting cultivar 'Uberlandia.’ The vitamin A content (carotene) is between 9,000 and 11,000 I. U.
Appropriate Technology Juice Pasteurizer
The “tubular juice pasteurizer,” as it is formally called, strikes me as an “appropriate technology” with unusual promise.
It is designed for situations where a large quantity of fruit is available for a limited period of time and for which there is no ready market or where marketing is not feasible because of difficulties in transporting the fruit to market. It also assumes a segment of the population would benefit either financially or nutritionally if it could produce an inexpensive pasteurized fruit drink.
It was developed in the late 1980’s by Dr. Phil Crandall and colleagues while he was with the University of Florida’s Lake Alfred Experiment Station. Dr. Crandall’s team developed the pasteurizer specifically for difficult Third World situations. His criteria included: low cost, no moving parts, easy to build, easy to move, rugged, and provide agitation (for even heating). Heating is hard on quality, so an emphasis was placed on what he called HTST (high temperature short time). The result is a pasteurizer which can be carried by one person to the most remote site.
Suggestions to Help Agroforesters Reduce Seedling Losses From Termites.
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Research is currently in progress on another, novel, approach to control of subterranean termites [which rely on fungi to make suitable food from decaying vegetation carried into the colony]. This approach is to apply fungicides to deprive them of their major food source by controlling these symbiotic fungi.
Fruit Fly Trap Made From Basil
“In Keralea (southern India) fruit fly (Dacus dorsalis and D. cucurbitae) incidence is severe in mango trees. P. Reghunath and M. Indira describe a low-cost technology to combat this insect pest.”