Close X
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
ADVT 
Health

Soon, corns to grow in caves, mines

Darpan News Desk IANS, 13 May, 2014 02:00 PM
  • Soon, corns to grow in caves, mines
In view of growing concerns about genetically modified crops cross-contaminating other crops, scientists have now devised a way to grow dwarf corn stalks in caves and abandoned mines without affecting their yield.
 
Lowering temperatures for two hours each day reduces the height of corn without affecting its seed yield, the study showed.
 
"It is an affordable, non-chemical means of taking genetically modified crops to harvest maturity without getting any kind of pollen or seed into the ecosystem," said Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture at Purdue University in the US.
 
For their experiment, the researchers installed a growth chamber with insulation and yellow and blue high-intensity discharge lamps in a former limestone mine in Marengo, Indiana, to test how corn would react to an environment in which its growing conditions - light, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide - were tightly controlled.
 
To their surprise, the hybrid corn responded by growing "too well".
 
“Productivity in a controlled environment is superior to that in the field, and you can raise more than one crop per year,” Mitchell maintained.
 
Controlled environment agriculture would be one of the big movements of the 21st century, he added.
 
The technique could be particularly useful for growing transgenic crops to produce high-value medicinal products such as antibodies for the budding plant-derived industrial and pharmaceutical compounds industry.

MORE Health ARTICLES

Grow bigger, stronger muscles with green tomatoes

Grow bigger, stronger muscles with green tomatoes
All of us love to eat red tomatoes but as unlikely as it sounds, green tomatoes may hold the answer to bigger, stronger muscles.

Grow bigger, stronger muscles with green tomatoes

Decoded: Who is most satisfied in love life

Decoded: Who is most satisfied in love life
Are you religious or married or enjoy harmonious social ties? You may belong to the pool of people that is most satisfied with love life.

Decoded: Who is most satisfied in love life

Revealed: How babies pick up words

Revealed: How babies pick up words
The results suggest that the sound patterns of human languages are the product of an inborn biological instinct, very much like birdsong

Revealed: How babies pick up words

Did you Know who you sit beside decides your position!

Did you Know who you sit beside decides your position!
Be it a high-powered dinner or a seminar, make sure you take your seat beside the person that matters as a study has confirmed that people who sit near you are more likely to support your agenda.

Did you Know who you sit beside decides your position!

Get number 7 to bring luck back in your life!

Get number 7 to bring luck back in your life!
Believe in numerology? Try to stick to number 7 in whatever you plan next - from a new car to your first house - as a poll has declared 7 as the world's most favourite number.

Get number 7 to bring luck back in your life!

Now get a beer glass that would double the pleasure!

Now get a beer glass that would double the pleasure!
You love the taste of bubbly, now taste the glass too! A German firm Spiegelau has developed a brew-specific vessel that has a precise combination of high-end glass and strategic curves for maximising joy for your stout.

Now get a beer glass that would double the pleasure!