From The Biz Journal - $5m Usda Wheat Grant

[Mango04]

I thought this was interesting...

UC Davis gets a piece of $5M USDA wheat grant

A national effort by wheat breeders and plant scientists, led by a researcher at University of California Davis, has been awarded $5 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to use genetic techniques to grow better grain.

The grant was awarded to implement a technology that uses genetic information to choose plants for breeding that have desirable qualities, such as disease resistance. The approach looks for "markers" -- recognizable pieces of genetic material that are associated with genes that carry such useful traits.

The project is led by Jorge Dubcovsky, a professor in the Department of Agronomy and Range Science at UC Davis. "This grant will enable us to expand our research effort, provide training for graduate and undergraduate students and share practical information about the technology with growers across the country," he said in a prepared statement.

The program includes universities in 17 states and four USDA laboratories.

The public universities and government labs developed varieties of wheat that accounted for 78 percent of U.S. production from 2001 through 2003. The new project is intended to use about 50 known markers more effectively and identify new markers associated with desirable traits.

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[plantime]

Now here is where being open-minded might cause problems: I don't think it is a waste of money. Just because I cannot have wheat, does not mean it would not be a good thing for someone else. I would like to see more research money put into celiac disease and such, though.

[tarnalberry]

Ditto what plantime said. I don't believe that wheat is equally bad for all, so I don't have a problem with money being spent on further research into breeding better plants. (Not GMO's, though... I'm not a fan of those at all.) But I also wish they'd invest more money into researching a wider variety of crops, so we're not overly reliant on a few.

[penguin]

  plantime said:

Now here is where being open-minded might cause problems: I don't think it is a waste of money. Just because I cannot have wheat, does not mean it would not be a good thing for someone else. I would like to see more research money put into celiac disease and such, though.

I agree, there's worse ways to spend money. Wheat is good for most people, just not us

Well, good for people in a whole grain form...

Though I do miss fruit loops

[Guest nini]

I had done some research into the genetics behind the wheat industry a while back and came across info about the virus Yellow Mosaic, which is killing off the natural wheat, so the scientists are trying to come up with a virus resistant grain... To me (conspiracy theorist that I am ) this just tells me that mother nature is trying to kill off a toxic grain and the scientists are being paid for some reason to prevent this from happening... I don't pretend to know why

am I serious? not really, but look up Yellow Mosaic virus in wheat and see what you think...

[Mango04]

Okay the subtitle was not meant to be taken that literally (although I can think of better things to spend the money on)

Interesting points though....

[Mango04]

  nini said:

I had done some research into the genetics behind the wheat industry a while back and came across info about the virus Yellow Mosaic, which is killing off the natural wheat, so the scientists are trying to come up with a virus resistant grain... To me (conspiracy theorist that I am ) this just tells me that mother nature is trying to kill off a toxic grain and the scientists are being paid for some reason to prevent this from happening... I don't pretend to know why

am I serious? not really, but look up Yellow Mosaic virus in wheat and see what you think...

Hey nini you might be on to something. lol. I think we often underestimate the power of Mother Nature and the extent to which she should not be messed with