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6 THE RURAL VOICE
Scrap Book
Hormone fools plants into better growth
An Alberta company will be
working with farmers in that
province this summer to test a new
product from Texas that promises to
fool plants into thinking they're
growing under ideal weather
conditions, even if there's a drought.
The product, called Stimulate,
was developed by Stoller
Enterprises of Houston, Texas and
is being distributed in Canada by
Agri -Trend Agrology in Red Deer,
Alberta, is claimed to convince
plants the ideal growing season is
taking place, even if it isn't. Ideally
a crop season for cereals grains
would begin with a moist., but not
wet, seedbed_ The next 30 days
would dry, followed by a week-long
rain, After this rain stops no more
moisture is needed for a bumper
crop with heads fully filled, short,
thick plants and no lodging.
Certain plant hormones called
auxins can be added to both seed
and foliage of young plants to
change grown patterns. Auxins
cause the plant to spend more
energy producing roots that tend to
go deeper. Controlling this new
relationship and balancing those
hormones with others such as
gibberllic acid (thought to control
sugar movement) and cytokinins
(which control growth) was the
toughest aspect of developing
Stimulate, said company officials
with Stoller Enterprises in Texas.
It is thought the proper balance
of hormones in field crops will
result in positive control over plant
chemistry and provide better
tolerance to drought through
improved rooting. But the
technology is uncertain.
"Changing plant hormones is
like sticking your hand into a big,
black box," said Ravi Chibbar,
leader of the cereal research group
at National Research Council in
Saskatoon. "You make some
changes and try it out and see what
happens. Maybe you get the results
you want. Maybe you don't. Getting
the right balance takes a lot of
research. In the end whatever you
do has to be financially viable for
the farmer."
Stoller fust licenced Stimulate in
1991. It has proven to work with
some horticultural crops but cereal
crops and field crops in northern
latitudes are new areas for the
product.
"The use of auxins to stimulate
root initiation has long been known
and used," says plant hormone
physiologist Jocelyn Ozaga of the
University of Alberta. "Field crops
such as wheat and barley have
relatively low prices that haven't
met the economic threshold for the
application of these products."
— Source: Western Producer
Bacteria may cause fatal horse disease
A previously unknown pathogen involved in a deadly equine disease has
been discovered by University of Guelph researchers.
Since 1993, Pathobiology Professors Henry Stampfli and John Prescott,
together with graduate student Gail Sutton, have shown that animals treated with
the antibiotic zinc bacitracin may experience a faster recovery from colitis than
animals treated with conventional methods. The researchers have also confirmed
reported data that one or more species of the bacterium Clostridium may cause
the condition.
"This is a breakthrough," said Stampfli. "Knowing the pathogen involved in
the disease opens options for more cost-effective prevention and treatment
strategies."
Until recently no one knew the causes of enterocolitis, a severe
inflammation of the large colon and cecum. Horses of all ages and under all
types of management conditions can get the disease any time of the year.
Affected horses experience severe diarrhea and dehydration, which, if left
untreated, results in high mortality rates.
There has been success using the antibiotic in treating human colitis.
—Source: University of Guelph Research Magazine