A Look Back on the Season

2012 Cucumber Crop Worst in Years

This past summer was not the season for cucumbers in the Knoxville area. I was overheard last week at the Farmers Market, bemoaning the absence of good cucumbers even in that venue. A lady in line near me turned and said she had had the same problem. Two attempts on our part yielded plants that quickly succumbed to cucumber mosaic virus. Ironically, a plant that came up volunteer in an area we’d amended with compost actually produced a few small cucumbers before it, too, became infected. Heat and humidity at the wrong times probably contributed to the crop failure.  We originally thought perhaps our choice of new varieties to try, ‘Picklebush’ and ‘Boston Pickling’ may have been the issue. But this would not explain the widespread nature of the cucumber shortage.

I have not had the opportunity to discuss this issue with locals who farm for a living. Whatever the reason, we’ll have no homemade pickles this year.

Rare Sweet Corn

Corn on the cob is one of the true pleasures of summer, but finding the genuine article locally has become increasingly difficult as the years roll by. Only a few of the 30 or more vendors at the FARM Farmer’s Market this year have offered corn. One of these was selling corn exclusively for a few weeks, then was seen no more. The only variety I saw offered that was not a sugar-enhanced type was ‘Silver Queen,’ the old standby for a white sweet corn around these parts. Unfortunately, the ears I purchased were picked a bit too late, and the flavor was not as good as it might have been.

All the other varieties we observed on offer were recently developed, high-fructose hybrids like ‘Ambrosia,’ ‘Peaches and Cream,’ and ‘Awesome.’ With all due respect to the plant breeders who have created these types of corn, they are almost too sweet for me. The original idea of sugar-enhanced corn was to increase the shelf life. As soon as it is picked, corn begins converting sugar to starch, so the fresher the ear the sweeter. Hence the old adage about bringing the water to a boil before going out to pick the corn.  Ordinary sweet corn varieties, like ‘IA Chief’ and ‘Golden Bantam’ were great eating, as long as you grew them yourself. If you wanted corn out of season, from someplace like, say, California, it just did not taste as good after its long journey, despite refrigeration. The answer, someone realized, was to grow sweeter corn that would remain sweet longer because it would take more time for enzymes in the ear to convert the sugar to starch.

Ironically, consumers have come to expect the farmer’s market to offer the same type of corn as the supermarket. Yellow and white varieties, like the so, so sweet ‘Honey and Pearl,’ tend to dominate because of their attractive appearance. But all of these lack the genuine, “corny” flavor of the heirlooms, and I wish local farmers would learn to grow them again. Offering ‘Silver Queen’ was a great idea, but you gotta know when to pick it. Burpee's seed catalog offers only three "normal sugar" corn varieties, 'Silver Queen,' 'Golden Bantam,' and 'Early Sunglow.' By contrast they have 10 "sugar enhanced" and 4 "super sweet" cultivars available. Locally, Mayo Seed offers some additional heirlooms, like 'IA Chief.'

We consumers should be dedicated to supporting local farmers who grow good sweet corn, regardless of the variety they offer. Few crops are less well suited to small scale production that corn. If you grow the modern hybrids, seed is expensive and it is often difficult to find seed not treated with chemical pesticides. (Burpee offers only one organically grown corn variety, 'Golden Bantam.') Further, corn is demanding in terms of both soil fertility and sunshine, and needs a lot of water to boot. Each plant will take up about 3 square feet of growing space, making it difficult for many home gardeners to squeeze in a patch. And for all its demands, corn rarely produces more than two ears per stalk. Given that the typical price at the FARM Farmer’s Market is $5 a dozen, it is easy to see why so few growers bother.

So if you are a local vegetable grower and you are reading this, I’ll make you an offer. Grow an heirloom sweet corn next year, pick it at the proper time, and bring it to market.  Let me know ahead of time, and I will do everything I can to encourage consumers to patronize your stand. And we locavores should be willing to pay a dollar an ear for the privilege.

Food Fight

The Irish are fighting, and I am not referring to the Notre Dame football team.  At odds, according to the BBC, are organic farmers and government agriculture officials who want to field test genetically modified (GM) potatoes. Organic farmers, concerned about unleashing harmful genes into the environment, and the potential for “contamination” of their organic crops with GM ones, have launched a firestorm of angry rhetoric.

What the government scientists want to do is grow a small plot of potatoes that have received genes from a wild potato variety in an attempt to confer resistance to late blight, arguably the most destructive potato disease, and one that is beginning to develop resistance to existing control methods. Because the genetic manipulation was done in a few weeks in the laboratory, rather than over a period of two decades of traditional plant breeding, GM opponents are upset.

The debate in Ireland offers an all-too-common example of politics trumping science. The type of genetic manipulation being done with potatoes is known as “cis-genic,” meaning a transfer of genes between species that are closely related to each other. This is essentially traditional agricultural breeding, speeded up via modern technology. It is a technique unlikey to produce “Frankenfood.”

It is ironic that much of the concern over GM varieties and organic agriculture represents unintended consequences of government regulation that was initially requested by farmers themselves. Organic farming was well out of the mainstream 40 years ago when I first started learning about it. As the 60s generation grew up, the market for organic foods grew also. Advertisers began throwing around health and nutritional claims related to “organic” foods, and soon the organic farmers began clamoring to have their brand (which at the time could command a 50% premium over market prices) protected. So the USDA finally came up with a program for organic food certification. In the intervening years, this has had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of supporting the small farmers who were producing artisanal products, the rules began shutting them out of the market and favoring big companies who could afford not only the high cost of certification, but also the  futures contracting power necessary to arrange for, say, 50 tons of organic wheat flour.

If you go to the farmer’s market, you are likely to find only one or two certified organic farmers. Most vendors are advertising themselves as “pesticide free” (= we sometimes use chemical fertilizer), “naturally farmed”(=we try to be as conscientious as possible), “biodynamic” (=naturally farmed, rama dama ding dong), and so forth. It costs several thousand dollars to certify a farm, and sweet corn is $5 a dozen ears. Do the math.

One of the tenets of organic production is a prohibition on GM crop varieties. No distinction is made between cis-genic modifications (equivalent to modern plant breeding on fast forward) versus trans-genic modifications (putting bacterial genes into corn plants).   Let us note, further, that the Ireland dust-up is over a carefully planned trial on a relatively minuscule acreage. The potato is self-fertile, so the wind cannot carry pollen from the fields. Upon rare occasion, members of the potato family are pollinated by flying insects, but separating the fields by a couple of miles solves that tiny concern. Yet, this experiment will have “grave consequences” for Irish agriculture, according to some.

With all that in mind, take a look, please, at the image at right. This is a tetra, Hyphessobrycon eques, a South American fish that has been in the aquarium trade for decades. It happens also to be albino. This particular fish, however, has had a bacterial gene for bioluminescence spliced in, and therefore it glows in the dark. I shot this photo at a local aquarium store. They have a tank full, along with albino zebra danio fish that also carry the bacterial glow-gene. Cute, huh? They sell like hotcakes, too, according to the store manager.

These fish are typically produced in Asia, shipped as small fry to Florida, grown to market size in outdoor ponds, and shipped to stores all over the country. During that entire cycle, no regulation, other than the strictly routine fish import permit, affects who may handle these fish and what they may do with them. Should a flood happen in east-central Florida (perhaps due to excessive rain from a hurricane), these fish could easily enter a river system and establish themselves. Although they would have nothing to interbreed with, as there are no tetras native to North America, their potential ecological impact is unknown. Numerous other species of tropical fish have established themselves in Florida waters, both fresh and marine, and some have caused serious problems.

One concern with all genetic modification is that it is difficult, although not impossible, to know if additional genes, of unknown effect, are present on the piece of DNA spliced in. Probably not, but still…you would need a complete DNA sequence of both this fish and a normal one for comparison. Given that two genes can be adjacent to each other and have wildly different biological effects, there is potential for harm. I’m willing to bet no such study has ever been done on these fish. I have no data for the tetra, but human beings share 85% of their genes in common with the zebra danio fish, so in the case of the tetra it should be similar. No apparent concern exists about importing thousands of these fish for pet stores everywhere, either.

I find it ironic that people get emotional about cis-genic potatoes, and think nothing of moving trans-genic animals all over the world, willy-nilly. Trans-genic plants are everywhere, too. The noteworthy “Mosquito Plant” which turns up in garden centers every spring, is a trans-genic variety. It is a geranium with citronella genes stitched in. Although there is no evidence the plant does anything to repel mosquitoes, people buy them. No outcry over “Frankenplants.”

In the United States, almost everyone eats GM foods without knowing it. If you consume French fries, corn chips and just about anything fried in a restaurant, you have very likely consumed GM corn, potatoes, and soybean oil. There is no requirement for food producers to label foods as containing GM ingredients. This, it seems to me, errs too far in the direction opposite an outright ban on GM foods.

There are some serious questions regarding the wisdom of allowing trans-genic hybrids into the environment, despite the fact that the horses are already out of the barn in many cases. We need more public discourse on the whole issue of GM organisms in food, what “organic” should really mean, and what regulatory structures might be most appropriate. People also need a better understanding, in general, of what GM actually invovles, on a species by species basis. And all of this needs to be approached without hysteria about “grave consequences” from either side.

Please add your comments to the discussion. What do you think about GM foods?