A million years of monoculture...

...sounds like a recipe for crop failure, according to proponents of sustainable agriculture. But that's exactly how leafcutter ants have been making a living since long before men could even say "leafcutter ant." Or even "ant."

Leafcutter ants harvest more greenery from South American forests than any other animal. They use it to feed just one species of fungus, which they propogate by cloning.  There is absolutely no genetic diversity within the fungal crop, which should be highly vulnerable to disease and disruption.

But the ants are not of a mind to broaden their fungal garden. Their favored food might be what really good baked beans are to us. Imagine eating beans, beans and more beans morning, noon and night and nothing but beans for millions of years. Now imagine a planet with six billion people eating beans and nothing but beans. Since forever.

To take your mind off that thought, you might want to check out the ant story at http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/could-ants-hold/#previouspost

NAIS is a solution looking for a problem, according to Lancaster Farming reader Dan Vaughan of White Hall, Md. Vaughan attended the recent NAIS information-gathering meeting in Harrisburg, Pa. He tells USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsak why he thinks the program is seriously flawed in an opinion piece in our current issue.

Never, NEVER put steroids in the feed trough. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTmzLpV4zpU

I can be reached by email at rwanner.eph@lnpnews.com, or by phone at 7117-419-4703. If you would like AgScene in your mailbox every morning, Monday through Friday, drop me a line.