Category — Bugs

Micro-farming – algae, plankton, insects

By Jakub Dzamba
University of Toronto
Nov, 2009
Email: k.dzamba@utoronto.ca

Excerpts:

The purpose of this living document is to add clarity and factual depth to a concept called micro-farming; where the remarkable ability of micro-organisms and insects to rapidly reproduce is harnessed for the production of food.

Third Millennium Farming (3MF) is about using species of micro-organisms (algae and plankton) that are much better converters of sunlight into plant biomass than even our fastest growing crops, and similarly using species of micro-livestock (insects) that are much better converters of plant biomass into edible meat than even our fastest growing livestock.

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Deborah Henderson, director of the Institute for Sustainable Horticulture at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Langley. Photo By Bill Keay. Vancouver Sun

Food Production: Kwantlen lab on cutting edge of pest control. Langley university to work on process that uses predators, parasites and microbes to fight destructive insects

By Randy Shore
16 Oct 2009
The Vancouver Sun

A new biological pest control laboratory opening today at Kwantlen Polytechnic University will place B.C. at the forefront of a global revolution in urban food production.

The lab — the first of its kind in North America — will develop insect-and microbe-based pest control systems for use on small-scale farms and in areas where farming and housing share space.

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Once again Maria takes us up close to insects at the Compost Demonstration Garden. In this video she captures honey bees drinking nectar from Borage
flowers.

More on Borage here.

Click on the YouTube icon to get a higher quality version.

Maria uses her macro lens to close in on our Fava Beans, which are covered in black aphids. Instead of reporting a bad news story, she points out all the beneficial insects dining on the aphids and shows us a bucket of ripe beans that survived despite the pest attack. Later she turned the harvested beans into a delicious Fava Bean humous.

More on Fava Beans here.

See higher quality video by clicking the YouTube icon above.

Nematodes Control the European Chafer Beetle

The European Chafer Beetle pest is attacking lawns on the east side of Vancouver. Soon these pests will migrate and destroy lawns on the west side too. In an attempt to control the beetle, it is recommended that residents apply nematodes to their lawns in the third week of July. Maria, City Farmer’s Bug Lady, describes how to do this.

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Host-Pathogen interactions, Malaria Infection cell biology. See complete image here.

Published in Malaria Journal, 4 August 2008
By Eveline Klinkenberg, PJ McCall, Michael D Wilson, Felix P Amerasinghe and Martin J Donnelly

To investigate the impact of urban agriculture on malaria transmission risk in urban Accra larval and adult stage mosquito surveys, were performed.

There has been a resurgence of interest in the problem of urban malaria in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. Urban malaria is likely to increase in importance as rapid urbanization will result in the majority of Africa’s population living in cities in the near future. It is commonly assumed that urbanization leads to a decrease in malaria prevalence because it results in fewer Anopheles breeding sites, reduced biting rates due to the higher ratio of humans to mosquitoes, better access to treatment and better (mosquito-proof) housing.

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Gretchen LeBuhn, Associate Professor at San Francisco State University writes:

“I’ve just launched the Great Sunflower Project, a citizen science project designed to learn about how bees are doing across the North American continent and how the pollination of our garden and wild plants are being affected. We are especially interested in finding out what is happening in urban gardens. As you probably know, we know very little about bee activity in home and community gardens, but we do know how important they are for food production.

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Maria Keating, Bug Lady at City Farmer, has created two comix-style flyers from photos of insects at the our Demonstration Garden in Vancouver BC. Maria teaches kids and adults about the almost invisible life that takes place in every backyard garden.

See the full-sized document here.