[KimS]

Well, I finally feel like I have done everything I HAVE to get done tonight and have set myself down for a nice cup of tea and a read... and this is what I found... so I had to share it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060929/...iffing_plant_8

Co-author Mark C. Mescher added, "One of the interesting things we found was that the plants make choices."

When they gave the dodder seedlings a choice between a tomato plant and a wheat plant, they preferred the tomato.

Dodder will infect wheat if there is no choice, he said, but they discovered that one of the volatile chemicals given off by wheat repels dodder, so it will choose the tomato if allowed to pick.

However, this part is a little frightening for us:

So, finding one compound that tends to be repellant could lead to ways to either treat crops to resist dodder or even engineer them to produce the compound themselves, Mescher said.

[annelb]

I heard that story on NPR this evening and thought the same thing. I hope they don't start spraying a wheat emulsion on vegetable plants
Anne

[rachelb]

Oh my goodness!!! ACK!!

I swear between e coli on the spinach and the dang rice thing and now this--I think growing your own or buying local organic veggies is the only way to go.

We've bought a share in a local organic farm the last two years and have had such yummy wonderful veggies and fruits from them. The veggies taste like homegrown instead of like cardboard.

Here's a link to finding community supported agriculture for people in the US:

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Rachel