Manipulating plants' circadian clock may make all-season crops possible

From physorg.com.

Yale University researchers have identified a key genetic gear that keeps the circadian clock of plants ticking, a finding that could have broad implications for global agriculture.


The research appears in the Sept. 2 issue of the journal Molecular Cell.
"Farmers are limited by the seasons, but by understanding the circadian rhythm of plants, which controls basic functions such as photosynthesis and flowering, we might be able to engineer plants that can grow in different seasons and places than is currently possible," said Xing Wang Deng, the Daniel C. Eaton Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale and senior author of the paper.
The circadian clock is the internal timekeeper found in almost all organisms that helps synchronize biological processes with day and night. In plants, this clock is crucial for adjusting growth to both time and day and to the seasons.
The clock operates through the cooperative relationship between "morning" genes and "evening" genes. Proteins encoded by the morning genes suppress evening genes at daybreak, but by nightfall levels of these proteins drop and evening genes are activated. Intriguingly, these evening genes are necessary to turn on morning genes completing the 24-hour cycle.
The Yale research solved one of the last remaining mysteries in this process when they identified the gene DET1 as crucial in helping to suppress expression of the evening genes in the circadian cycle.
"Plants that make less DET1 have a faster clock and they take less time to flower," said lead author On Sun Lau, a former Yale graduate student who is now at Stanford University. "Knowing the components of the plant's circadian clock and their roles would assist in the selection or generation of valuable traits in crop and ornamental plants."

Joel Salatin: How to Prepare for A Future Increasingly Defined By Localized Food & Energy

Excellent article/podcast by Chris Martenson on Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farms, and one of the true pioneers of sustainable agriculture.

The original article is at Chris' site (which is excellent!)

Hat tip to Zerohedge.

Joel Salatin, proprietor of Polyface Farms and highly-visible champion of sustainable farming, thinks modern humans have become so far removed from a natural connection to the food they eat, that we no longer have a true understanding of what "normal" food is.
The rise of Big Ag and factory farming over the past century has conditioned us to treat food mechanically (as something to be recoded and retooled) vs biologically. And we don't realize that for all our industrialization and optimization, we're actually getting less yield and less nutrition than natural-based processes can offer.
Whether we like it or not, the arrival of peak oil is going to force us to realize that our heavily-energy intensive practices can't continue at their current scale. And with world population still increasing exponentially, we'll need to find other, more sustainable, ways of growing our food.

More after the break....

Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) (in 2 minutes)

Amazing stuff folks are coming up with these days.  These are the types of projects that are on the cutting edge for both resilient and third world communities.  Open source, easy to build, low cost.

From the Open Source Ecology Blog

Hackerspaces

Hackerspaces are the digital-age equivalent of English Enlightenment coffee houses. They are places open to all, indifferent to social status, and where ideas and knowledge hold primary value. In 17th-century England, the social equality and merit-ocracy of coffee houses was so deeply troubling to those in power that King Charles II tried to suppress them for being "places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers". It was in the coffee houses that information previously held in secret and by elites was shared with an emerging middle class. They were held responsible for many of the social reforms of the 18th century, when English public life was transformed.

More from the Guardian

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hackerspaces

106 Acre Profitable Permaculture Farm - Interview with Owner Mark Shepard

In this interview we discuss Mark Shepard's 106 acre profitable permaculture farm - New Forest Farm. Specifically:
-Mark's decision to use permaculture in his farm
-Perennials vs. Annuals in Agriculture
-The history of annuals and the future of them
-Rainwater Harvesting
-Composting
-Humanure
-Miscellaneous Goodness



106 Acre Profitable Permaculture Farm - Interview with Owner Mark Shepard from GroAction on Vimeo.

TED talk: Open Source Ecology and resilient communities

Highly recommended, this lecture by Marcin Jakeubowski from Open Source Ecology is from the prestigious TED conference.

Building tools for replicable, open source, post-scarcity resilient communities

This is the future, open source, decentralized, off grid communities. It may sound like a commune, but is far far from it. It is more in the vein of hardcore libertarianism (either left or right). The Future. Highly recommended!!!!

Open Source Ecology: Open Source Ecology is developing and testing the Global Village Construction Set, a set of tools to build replicable, open source, modern, off-grid resilient communities. By weaving open source permacultural and technological cycles together, we intend to provide basic human needs while being good stewards of the land, using resources sustainably, and pursuing right livelihood. With the gift of openly shared information, we can produce industrial products locally using open source design and digital fabrication. This frees us from the need to participate in the wasteful resource flows of the larger economy by letting us produce our own materials and components for the technologies we use. We see small, independent, land-based economies as means to transform societies, address pressing world issues, and evolve to freedom.

http://blog.opensourceecology.org/

Wiki:
http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/

Permaculture/RC Links

Japanese permaculture blog has great pictures and write ups:
http://livingpermaculture.blogspot.com/

Permaculture blogs, podcasts and videos by Paul Wheaton:
http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/

If you're on Reddit, jump over to the Resilient Communities sub forum:
http://www.reddit.com/r/resilientcommunities

Foraging on Vacant Lots, via the NY Times:
NY Times

PodPonics: 320 square foot shipping container uses environmental control and hydroponics to produce an acre's worth of food.:
PodPonics

The Resilient Community Wiki

Started by John Robb, of Global Guerrillas fame (and one of my very favorite websites), MiiU is a collection of all the resources and places that make personal, family, and community resilience possible. Resilience isn't only about surviving global failures, it's about building a better life for you and everyone around you.  A fascinating read on a cutting edge topic.  Highly recommended.

Resilient Communities / MIIU wiki

John Robb's website:

Global Guerillas