New biodiversity study throws out controversial scientific theory

Scientists have released ground-breaking findings that dismiss the 'Neutral Theory of Biodiversity'. The theory has dominated biodiversity research for the past decade, and been advocated as a tool for conservation and management efforts. The study, the largest of its kind, covers a broad range of marine ecosystems on Earth and has important implications for how marine conservation areas are managed.

Researchers have today released ground-breaking findings that dismiss the 'Neutral Theory of Biodiversity'. The theory has dominated biodiversity research for the past decade, and been advocated as a tool for conservation and management efforts.

Professor Sean Connolly from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University (JCU) is the lead author of the international study, which he says overturns the long-used theory by employing a novel mathematical method. It is the largest study of its kind, covering a broad range of marine ecosystems on Earth.

"The study has important implications for how marine conservation areas are managed," Professor Connolly says.

"The aim of neutral theory is to explain diversity and the relative abundances of species within ecosystems. However, the theory has an important flaw: it fails to capture how important the highly abundant species that dominate marine communities are."

Professor Connolly explains that it's often the really abundant species that deliver substantial ecosystem services like providing habitat for fishes, or keeping reefs clear of seaweeds. "These species have unique features that allow them to be so abundant, and to play those key roles," he says.

But when neutral theory underpins marine conservation, species are treated as swappable. "So the theory implies that, if you lose a really abundant species, then another can simply increase in abundance to take its place."

Using neutral theory, species become common or rare as a consequence of random processes: chance variation in who a predator happens to eat, or whose dispersing offspring happen to land on a vacant bit of real estate on the seafloor. This study shows that these random processes are not strong enough to explain the large differences between common and rare species.

Professor Connolly points to Caribbean coral reefs as an example of why this problem with neutral theory can be important. "Until the 1970s, these reefs were dominated by two species that were close relatives of the branching corals that dominate the reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. When these species were nearly lost as a consequence of overfishing and other forms of reef degradation, no other coral species increased to fill the gap," he says.

"Those species had particular traits that made them so abundant, and therefore critical to a functioning healthy reef system," continues Dr Julian Caley a co-author of the study from the Australian Institute of Marine Studies (AIMS).

"Both biodiversity theory and conservation managers need to be alert to these characteristics, because it is often the common species, not the rare ones, that are most important to healthy ecosystems," Dr Caley explains.

"The results of this study are also unprecedented in their remarkable consistency across a very large set of vastly different ecological systems throughout the world's oceans," he adds.

The study looks at 14 different marine ecosystems sampled at 1185 locations across the globe. The datasets range from the polar to tropical regions, from deep-sea to shallow coral reef environments and intertidal zones. It includes vertebrates as well as invertebrates, from plankton, to clams, to coral reef fishes.

To overturn neutral theory, the study used a novel mathematical method that identified common predictions of the different models that form the theory. These predictions were then tested against this wide array of marine ecosystems.

Source:ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies & Science Daily

Light-colored butterflies and dragonflies thriving as European climate Warm

Butterflies and dragonflies with lighter colors are out-competing darker-colored insects in the face of climate change. Scientists have shown that as the climate warms across Europe, communities of butterflies and dragonflies consist of more lighter coloured species. Darker coloured species are retreating northwards to cooler areas, but lighter coloured species are also moving their geographical range north as Europe gets warmer.

Butterfly on Lavender
Credit:© Gordan Jankulov / Fotolia

 Butterflies and dragonflies with lighter colours are out-competing darker-coloured insects in the face of climate change.

In a new study published in Nature Communications, scientists from Imperial College London, Philipps-University Marburg and University of Copenhagen have shown that as the climate warms across Europe, communities of butterflies and dragonflies consist of more lighter coloured species. Darker coloured species are retreating northwards to cooler areas, but lighter coloured species are also moving their geographical range north as Europe gets warmer.

For example, several Mediterranean dragonfly species have expanded their northern range and immigrated to Germany, such as the Southern Migrant Hawker (Aeshna affinis), the Scarlet Darter (Crocothemis erythraea) and the Dainty Damselfly (Coenagrion scitulum). In 2010, the Dainty Damselfly was also sighted in England for the first time in over 50 years. Butterfly species that thrive in warm climates, like the Southern Small White (Pieris mannii), have dispersed to Germany during the last ten years and are still continuing their northward shift.

As with lizards and snakes, the colour of an insect's body plays a key role in how they absorb energy from the sun, and is crucial in fuelling their flight as well as regulating their body temperature.

Dark-coloured insects are able to absorb more sunlight than light-coloured insects, in order to increase their body temperature, and are more likely to be found in cooler climates. In contrast, insects in hotter climates need to protect themselves against overheating. Light-coloured insects are more likely to be found in hotter climates as they can reflect the light to prevent overheating their body and be active for longer periods of time.

Carsten Rahbek, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London said: "For two of the major groups of insects, we have now demonstrated a direct link between climate and insect colour, which impact their geographical distribution."

"We now know that lighter-coloured butterflies and dragonflies are doing better in a warmer world, and we have also demonstrated that the effects of climate change on where species live are not something of the future, but that nature and its ecosystems are changing as we speak," concluded Professor Rahbek, who is also Director of the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen. To identify whether colour lightness was correlated to temperature, the scientists combined digital image analysis, which scanned and measured colour values of butterfly and dragonfly wings and bodies, with distributional data which mapped where in Europe the species are found.

They looked at 366 butterfly species and 107 dragonfly species across Europe, and showed a clear pattern of light-coloured insects dominating the warmer south of Europe and darker insects dominating the cooler north.

To test whether a warming climate had caused any shifts, they looked at changes in species distributions over an 18-year period from 1988-2006. Results showed that on average insects were becoming lighter in colour, and that darker-coloured insects were shifting towards the cooler areas in Western margins of Europe, the Alps and the Balkans.

Research has previously suggested that climate change is having an impact on the distribution of species, but this study provides evidence of a direct link and confirms basic assumptions about how changes in the climate can affect patterns of biodiversity.

Lead author Dirk Zeuss from Philipps-University Marburg in Germany said: "When studying biodiversity, we lack general rules about why certain species occur where they do. With this research we've been able to show that butterfly and dragonfly species across Europe are distributed according to their ability to regulate heat through their colour variation. Until now we could only watch the massive changes in the insect fauna during the last 20 years. Now we have an idea of what could be a strong cause of the changes."

Sources: Imperial London College & Science Daily

Vines choke a forest's ability to capture carbon

As tropical forests take over abandoned agricultural land, scientists expect these new forests to mop up industrial quantities of atmospheric carbon. New research shows increasingly abundant vines could hamper carbon uptake and may even cause tropical forests to lose carbon.

Tropical forests are a sometimes-underappreciated asset in the battle against climate change. They cover seven percent of land surface yet hold more than 30 percent of Earth's terrestrial carbon. As abandoned agricultural land in the tropics is taken over by forests, scientists expect these new forests to mop up industrial quantities of atmospheric carbon. New research by Smithsonian scientists shows increasingly abundant vines could hamper this potential and may even cause tropical forests to lose carbon.

In the first study to experimentally demonstrate that competition between plants can result in ecosystem-wide losses of forest carbon, scientists working in Panama showed that lianas, or woody vines, can reduce net forest biomass accumulation by nearly 20 percent. Researchers called this estimate "conservative" in findings published this month inEcology.

"This paper represents the first experimental quantification of the effects of lianas on biomass," said lead author Stefan Schnitzer, a research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "As lianas increase in tropical forests, they will lower the capacity for tropical forests to accumulate carbon."

Previous research by Schnitzer and others demonstrated that lianas are increasing in tropical forests around the globe. No one knows why. Decreased rainfall is one suspect, but lianas, which are generally more drought-tolerant than trees, are increasing in abundance even in rainforests that have not experienced apparent changes in weather patterns.

Lianas climb trees to reach the forest canopy where their leaves blot out the sunlight required for tree growth. They account for up to 25 percent of the woody plants in a typical tropical forest, but only a few percent of its carbon. They do not compensate for displaced carbon due to relatively low wood volume, low wood density and a high rate of turnover.

Machetes in hand, Schnitzer and colleagues chopped lianas out of forest plots for this study. After collecting eight years of data comparing liana-free plots with naturally liana-filled plots in the same forest, they quantified the extent to which lianas limited tree growth, hence carbon uptake. In gaps created by fallen trees, lianas were shown to reduce tree biomass accumulation by nearly 300 percent. Findings by Schnitzer and colleagues, also published this year in Ecology, showed that liana distribution and diversity are largely determined by forest gaps, which is not the case for tropical trees.

Arid conditions in gaps are similar to recently reforested areas. "The ability of lianas to rapidly invade open areas and young forests may dramatically reduce tropical tree regeneration -- and nearly all of the aboveground carbon is stored in trees," said Schnitzer. Lianas have been shown to consistently hinder the recruitment of small trees, and limit the growth, fecundity and survival of established trees.

"Scientists have assumed that the battle for carbon is a zero-sum game, in which the loss of carbon from one plant is balanced by the gain of carbon by another. This assumption, however, is now being challenged because lianas prevent trees from accumulating vast amounts of carbon, but lianas cannot compensate in terms of carbon accumulation," said Schnitzer. "If lianas continue to increase in tropical forests, they will reduce the capacity for tropical forests to uptake carbon, which will accelerate the rate of increase of atmospheric carbon worldwide."

Source:Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute & Science Daily

Straw From Oilseed As A New Source of Biofuels

Straw from crops such as wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape is seen as a potential source of biomass for second generation biofuel production. Currently the UK produces around 12 million tonnes of straw. Although much is used for animal bedding, mushroom compost and energy generation, there still exists a vast surplus. Preliminary lab findings are pointing at ways that the process of turning straw from oilseed rape into biofuel could be made more efficient, as well as how the straw itself could be improved.

The bright yellow fields of oilseed rape are a familiar sight at this time of year, but for scientists what lies beneath is just as exciting.

Researchers at the Institute of Food Research are looking at how to turn straw from oilseed rape into biofuel. Preliminary findings are pointing at ways the process could be made more efficient, as well as how the straw itself could be improved.

Straw from crops such as wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape is seen as a potential source of biomass for second generation biofuel production. Currently the UK produces around 12 million tonnes of straw. Although much is used for animal bedding, mushroom compost and energy generation, there still exists a vast surplus.

Straw contains a mix of sugars that could be used as a source of biofuels that do not compete with food production but instead represent a sustainable way of utilizing waste. However, the sugars are in a form that makes them inaccessible to the enzymes that release them for conversion into biofuels, so pre-treatments are needed. The pre-treatments make the complex carbohydrates more accessible to enzymes that convert them to glucose, in a process called saccharification. This is then fermented by yeast into ethanol.

Using the facilities at the Biorefinery Centre on the Norwich Research Park, Professor Keith Waldron and his team have been looking at the steps needed to unlock the sugars tied up in the tough straw structure. In particular, they have looked at the pre-treatment stage, focusing on steam explosion, which involves 'pressure-cooking' the biomass, to drive a number of chemical reactions. A rapid pressure-release then causes the material to be ripped open, to further improve accessibility.

They varied the temperature and duration of steam explosion and then used a variety of physical and biochemical techniques to characterise what effects varying the pre-treatments had on the different types of sugars before and after saccharification.

The amount of cellulose converted to glucose increased with the severity of the pretreatment. Saccharification efficiency is also associated with the loss of specific sugars, and subsequent formation of sugar breakdown products.

In a further study funded by the BBSRC / EPSRC Integrated Biorefining Research and Technology Club, the scientists discovered the key factors that determine the efficiency of saccharification. One particular compound, uronic acid, limited the rate at which enzymes worked. The final sugar yield was closely related to the removal of xylan, a common component of plant cell walls. The abundance of lignin, a 'woody' cell wall component, was positively related to the amount of available sugars.

These findings will help improve the efficiency by which straw can be converted to biofuels. For example, adding enzymes that more effectively remove xylan should improve yield. Controlling the level of lignin in the material should also help.

It may even be possible to improve the straw itself, for example to reduce the uronic acid content in the biomass, as suggested by these findings. In the main, oilseed rape has been bred to improve oilseed yield and disease resistance, without paying much attention to the straw. The IFR is working with colleagues at the University of York and the John Innes Centre to see whether there are ways of breeding more "biofuel-ready" varieties of oilseed rape, with the same yields of oilseed but with more amenable straw. In addition, a full understanding of the polysaccharides and other compounds made available during pretreatment may mean other valuable co-products, like platform chemicals, may be viably produced from the surplus straw.

Source:Norwich Bioscience Institutes & Science Daily

Students develop app to mitigate Kathmandu’s garbage problem

A group of Geomatics students from Kathmandu University have developed an android application that could go a long way in keeping the city clean. The app was developed during the recent SpaceApps Challenge held in Kathmandu on 13 April. 

The app enables users to take pictures of garbage dumps and points out the exact location and quantity of litter. The information is then uploaded on a web map to alert relevant officials to take action.  

The app won the first prize at the Challenge organized by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and YoungInnovations. A member of the winning team, Niroj Panta, said the motivation to develop such an app came from their desire to see a cleaner Kathmandu. 

“Initially, we had no idea what we wanted to do at the SpaceApps Challenge, but then we came up with this idea and are proud of the app,” he said. “We will now work toward improving the app further to achieve global standards”. 

Niroj Panta’s team, G10E, and the first runners-up, Cool Nepal, will represent the country at the global International SpaceApps Challenge to be held later this year. They will compete with 180 teams from around the world. 

The event also saw some very young participants. Among them, 18-year-old Ashim Sitoula and 16-year-old Swodesh Sedhai were named second runners-up. They developed an android rover that uses android smart phone to track an object and follow it. 

The event was organized within the framework of SERVIR-Himalaya, an initiative supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)that aims to improve environmental decision making in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.

In his opening remarks, SERVIR Project Director Dan Irwin, said such events bring together people who want to develop applications that improve people’s lives.  Dan Irwin encouraged students to continue exploring their areas of interest. 

Speaking at the closing of the event, ICIMOD’s Director Strategic CooperationBasanta Shrestha highlighted the role of space technologies in benefiting societies with specific emphasis on mountain communities. “Technologies provide innovative solutions to communities and social challenges,” he said. “Challenges set out for this event sought to address real world problems, and the participants have been able to make remarkable strides.” 

Working tirelessly over 48 hours, 16 teams chose from five different thematic areas: technology in space, human spaceflight, asteroids, earth watch, and robotics to come up with applications, both software and hardware.  The apps were judged on the basis of impact, collaboration, and presentation.

Acting Regional Programme Manager and Technical Coordinator of SERVIR-Himalaya at ICIMOD, Birendra Bajracharya, said the ideas that participants came up with have potential for expanding to wider application areas. Having sat in the jury for last year’s event, he said there were fewer challenges on hardware this year, but the mapping and mobile applications showed more clarity in conceptual design.

Source:http://www.icimod.org/?q=13496

Color Determines The Tone Of Your Flowers Arrangements

Color is influential in every aspect of our lives. It conveys a warm or cool feeling and can draw you in or divert attention. It can create feelings of cheerfulness, sadness, love or tranquility. In flower arranging knowing how to blend colors together can make or break your design so careful thought should go into your choice of colors before you start.

Flowers come in an astounding number of hues and shades due to continual crossbreeding. This is the most true in roses. There are well over a hundred different types of roses now of every shade imaginable and counting. They have even been bred now to have two or three different shades on the petals and are fast becoming a new favorite for florists and customers alike.

If you are new to arranging or still struggle with how to put color together, take heart, there is help in the form of whats called the color wheel. It is made up of primary colors, secondary colors and intermediate colors. The first thing one needs to understand, is that the primary colors are only three colors, red, blue and yellow. All colors are made from combining these colors but you cannot make red, blue or yellow by combining any colors.

Red is a very hot, passionate and strong color. It creates drama in an arrangement. Red can make you think of Christmas or valentines. Yellow is a happy color and evokes a feeling of anticipation like you experience when spring has arrived and the sun is shinning and things are coming back to life. Birthday arrangements or baby arrangements often have yellow as it does evoke that feeling of cheerfulness.

Blue is a cool color and creates a softer feeling like you may experience when looking at the sky in the summertime.

Combining primary colors together creates secondary colors. Red and yellow make orange, red and blue make purple and yellow and blue make green.

Orange is a dramatic color, not as hot as red but it still has impact. If you want an arrangement to have the autumn feel then you should combine colors such as browns, gold or a bit of yellow and red-orange together. It will make a bold statement.

Purple is a vibrant color but unlike red and orange it has a calming effect. When you combine purple, blues, pinks and a bit of yellow together, you get this luscious vibrant and soothing arrangement.

Green is a universal color that goes with any color of arrangement. In nature all flowers spring up from greens so it is very natural to use them in all arrangements. In fact, I like to put together three different shades and textures of greens together before putting any flowers in my arrangement. It is very effective.

You can take any of these color combinations and put them together in their lighter or darker shades depending on what mood you are trying to create. Also, you do not need to stick to just these color combinations. If you want drama, try mixing together dark red, purple, yellow and a bit of white. Contrast can make quite a bold statement.

Last but not least here is a list of colors on the color wheel starting with yellow:

Yellow orange, orange, red orange, red, red violet, violet, blue violet, blue, blue green, green, and finally yellow green. Of course you could make many more hues but for our purpose here we stick with the color wheel.

7 Reasons To Grow Your Own Organic Vegetable Garden

Organic Vegetable Farming

During the last decades there has been a change towards mechanization and homogenization of farming, which uses pesticides, additives, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers and mass-production techniques. All this is clearly affecting mankind’s health, and new diseases are spreading rapidly amongst humans and animals (bird’s flu being the most recent one).

The World Health Organization produces reports to show how the use of chemicals and other products on food, coupled with the manufacturing processes involved, are actually a threat for our health.

If you have space for a few pots or even a small piece of land, it is a wise decision to grow your own organic vegetable garden. Today I’m presenting you with seven reasons for doing this:

1. You will have no additives in your vegetables. Research by organic food associations has shown that additives in our food can cause heart diseases, osteoporosis, migraines and hyperactivity.

2. There will be no pesticides or synthetic fertilizers used. These chemical products are applied to obtain crops all the time regardless plagues or weather conditions, and affect the quality of the vegetables. Besides, pesticides are usually poisonous to humans.

3. Your vegetables will not be genetically modified (GM). Antibiotics, drugs and hormones are used on vegetables to grow more and larger ones. One of the consequences of this practice are vegetables which look all the same and are usually tasteless. Besides, we end up consuming the hormones that have been used on the vegetables, with the potential risks for our health.

4. Eating your own organic vegetables will be much more healthy for you. They will not contain any of the products or chemicals named above, and they will be much more natural than any ones you would find at the supermarket. Your health will not be at risk because you will then know that nothing has been added to your vegetables.

5. Your own organic vegetables will be much more tasty. The use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, hormones and antibiotics make vegetables grow unnaturally and take the taste away from them. With organic vegetables, your cooking will be enhanced as their flavour will show fully.

6. Organic farming is friendly to the environment. Because you won’t use pesticides or other equally harming products on your vegetables, you will not damage the soil or the air with the chemical components.

7. When you grow your own organic vegetables you are contributing to your own self-sustainability and the sustainability of the planet. Small communities have been founded where members exchange products that they grow naturally, thus contributing to create a friendly and better place for us all.
In the end, eating organic products only means that we do not add anything else to them than they would naturally have. As you can guess, additives, fertilizers, pesticides or hormones are not components of naturally grown food. To better care for your health, grown your own organic vegetables -and a few pots is all you need.

Warming Up-Alternative Energy Source and Global Warming

Global warming is one of the hottest issues nowadays. The current climate change is the worst yet to happen. Global warming is an overall increase in world temperature which is attributed to the increasing number of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere. Searching an alternative energy source is considered a way of reducing the toxic emissions.

Greenhouse gases can be produced both by natural and industrial processes. The most abundant greenhouse gases on earths atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and CFCs.

There are several sources of greenhouse gases. Burning of fossil fuels and deforestation lead to higher concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Without the trees and plants to take in the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels, natural gas and petroleum products, all of the CO2 emitted stays in the atmosphere.

Also the use of CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons in refrigeration systems and in fire suppression systems and other manufacturing processes also increase the greenhouse content of our atmosphere. While the use of non-organic fertilizers in agriculture also lead to higher nitrous oxide concentrations, another greenhouse gas.

In the United States, greenhouse gas emissions mainly come from the use of fossil fuels as energy source. Approximately 82 percent of the greenhouse gas emission in the United States in 2006 came from the combustion of coal, natural gas and petroleum (United States Energy Information Administration). Meanwhile in Asia, Chine is expected to increase its emission of greenhouse gas because of the construction of old-fashioned power plants in its internal provinces. Currently, the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are the highest in 150,000 years. The 1990s was most likely the warmest decade in history, while 1998 was the warmest year (Greenpeace).

Not controlling the greenhouse gas being emitted by human activity can increase climate change the next hundred years that will be much faster than anything known and recorded in history. There are necessary steps to be undertaken to control the toxic emission that will soon be killing us.

To minimize the consumption of oil, petroleum and other fossil fuel, we should use energy efficiently. Energy that we use should be generated from renewable energy source, which would mean harnessing the natural energy from the sun, winds, crops, tides and waves.

Green energy is another term used to describe sources of energy that are considered to be environmentally friendly, which is also similar to the renewable sources of energy.

There are numerous ways of generating electricity and energy from renewable and natural sources that generate clean and safe energy. Wind, sun, and heat can generate electricity for less price and less carbon emission than those of coal and even gas.

Shifting the worlds attention to alternative fuel source other than relying on fossil fuel is among the solutions in resolving the drastic climate change. Greenpeace cited that with renewable energy and using it smartly, can deliver half of the worlds energy needs by 2050. Greenpeace also cited that it is feasible to reduce carbon dioxide emission to almost 50 percent within the next 43 years.

Governments are taking steps to use and tap alternative energy sources as main source of energy. The European Union leaders made an agreement in March 2007 to ensure that 20 percent of their nations energy should come from renewable fuels by 2020. This is part of their effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gas. There are even governments offering incentives to their residents who are using green energy.

Alternative energy source may not be the only way to reduce the greenhouse emission that human activity produce. There are simple ways in which we can do to contribute in reducing toxic gas emission and mitigate global warming.

The History of Organic Vegetable Gardening

The history of organic vegetable gardening dates back many centuries ago as the ancient civilizations relied on this livelihood and fishing to put food on the table.

Back then, nobody used fertilizers and pesticides but as the worlds increased in population, the demand for food also went up. To fill the gap, scientists decided to introduce fertilizers and chemicals to cut the harvesting time and make the vegetables bigger.

Organic vegetable gardening only made a come back in the 1980s making an old practice new again when the US department of Agriculture encouraged farmers to do it by giving them incentives. This made more farmers join the bandwagon which is also being done in Europe.

But organic vegetable gardening is not just eliminating the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers will have to use other means to make crop grows such as compost, crop residue, crop rotation, integrated pest management and mechanical cultivation in order to preserve soil productivity and combat pests.

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements is the regulator these days that tells farmers across the globe how this should be done. Their recommendations help crops grow in 75 million acres of land across the globe.

Their strategy is focused on sustainable development so that the land used today can only be used by the next generation as we have left for them a healthy ecosystem.

Organic vegetable gardening has proven to be effective because since its inception in 1980. To prove this point, one study has pointed out that the amount of corn and soybeans produced using this method was almost the same compared to those who used fertilizers and pesticides. The best part is that this was achieved without using that much energy and without the risk of having harmful chemicals enter our bodies.

It has been estimated by one university that if developing countries also practice organic vegetable gardening, they too can also double or triple their crops without wasting money on buying pesticides and fertilizes.

One thing you have to keep in mind here is that a percentage of vegetables being consumed in the US are imported from other countries.

Because organic vegetable gardening is so easy, anyone can do it. This will enable you to plant your own vegetables at home instead of buying these from the supermarket.

The key to a successful harvest using organic farming is planning. You will need the land to plant these on that has adequate sunlight and an efficient drainage system so that they are able to get water.

If you are able to figure that out, the only thing you have to worry about is what to plant because some vegetables do not well under certain conditions that could be attributed to the climate and the type of soil in the ground.

Those who know what they can and cannot plant will save themselves time and money so they can focus on what works.

The history of organic vegetable gardening has now come full circle as we are doing what the ancients have practiced long before we were born. You can do your part by buying those that are organically grown from the supermarket or planting your own.

The end result is that we eat healthy without ever thinking if these contain any chemicals that may be harmful to our bodies.