Watermelon silent killer

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From: Doug Powell
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 14:04:25 -0500
To: BITES-L@LISTSERV.KSU.EDU<BITES-L@LISTSERV.KSU.EDU>
Subject: [BITES-L] bites Sept. 4/09 -- II

bites Sept. 4/09 -- II

BARFBLOG: Dubai supermarkets start direct food safety messaging at deli counters

UK: E.coli probe shop 'set to reopen'

Contaminated VIETNAM rice dumped

Over 80 children hospitalized with food poisoning in UKRAINE

AUSTRALIA: Hendra biosecurity branded 'wussy'

MARYLAND: Recycling food scraps into gardens

SOUTH CAROLINA: Watermelon's hidden killer

GERMANY: Pesticides -- easier detection of pollution and impact in rivers

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BARFBLOG: Dubai supermarkets start direct food safety messaging at deli counters
04.sep.09
barfblog
Doug Powell
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2009/09/articles/food-safety-communication/dubai-supermarkets-start-direct-food-safety-messaging-at-deli-counters/
Dubai is hot, with daytime highs at this time of year regularly exceeding 40C (104 F). Local public health types determined that with the super shopping mega malls, people were buying food, placing it in the incubators they called cars, and then some more leisurely shopping.
So, after a few meetings, all supermarkets in Dubai will now be offering warnings, similar to these, regarding ready-to-eat foods. The sign says, 'Cold Food Consume Immediately Or Refrigerate Within One Hour.'
Cool stuff.

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UK: E.coli probe shop 'set to reopen'
04.sep.09
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_east/8238123.stm
The owner of a food outlet closed as part of an investigation into an E.coli outbreak is expected to be given the all clear to resume trading.
Llay Fish Bar in Wrexham was shut five weeks ago after it was confirmed by the National Public Health Service for Wales as the outbreak's likely source.
Four people including a three-year-old girl, had the same strain of E.coli, after buying food from the premises.
Wrexham council said a statement on the matter was being prepared.
The solicitor for the fish and chip shop's owner, Ramazan Aslan, said his client was planning to reopen the premises as "soon as conveniently possible".
But the husband of a woman left seriously ill by the outbreak said he was disappointed Mr Aslan's licence was being restored at this time.

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Contaminated VIETNAM rice dumped
04.sep.09
Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20090903T170000-0500_158922_OBS_CONTAMINATED_VIETNAM_RICE_DUMPED.asp
Twenty-five tonnes of rice that was shipped from Vietnam to Jamaica in June but was found to be contaminated with rat droppings, was on Tuesday destroyed by the Food Storage and Prevention of Infestation Division (FSPID) of the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce.
The FSPID's senior food storage scientist, Tamara Morrison, said the rice, valued at approximately J$1.24 million, was intended for local distribution. She said it was pre-released into the custody of a customs broker, subsequent to which FSPID inspectors conducted an initial inspection of the cargo on June 26.

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Over 80 children hospitalized with food poisoning in UKRAINE
04.sep.09
Ria Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/exsoviet/20090904/156021773.html
KIEV -- The number of children hospitalized with food poisoning in Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea has risen to 83, local health authorities reported on Friday.
On Wednesday, 59 children from the city of Dzhankoy were hospitalized with suspected food poisoning. A hospital spokesperson said that the three nurseries the children attended all received food from the same supplier.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has ordered an "immediate investigation" into the incident.

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AUSTRALIA: Hendra biosecurity branded 'wussy'
04.sep.09
Sydney Morning Herald
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/hendra-biosecurity-branded-wussy-20090904-fas7.html
AAP
A peak horse body is calling for horse owners, handlers and veterinarians to change a culture where biosecurity practices are seen as "wussy."
Veterinarian and horse communities have been rocked by the death of Rockhampton father and vet Alister Rodgers after he contracted the Hendra virus from infected horses at a Cawarral horse stud, near Rockhampton.
The Queensland Horse Council (QHC) president Debbie Dekker says horse owners, handlers and vets need to tighten up their biosecurity practices.
"We are a pretty gung-ho lot and biosecurity is treated like some sort of wussy thing," Ms Dekker told AAP.
"Everyone needs to tighten up their biosecurity practices.
"We still have a lot of people who don't know about Hendra virus so we need to get the information out to horse owners."
She said the QHC would review the latest outbreak and provide recommendations to the state government and the industry.
Three horses have either died or been put down after testing positive for Hendra at J4S horse nursery in Cawarral.

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MARYLAND: Recycling food scraps into gardens
04.sep.09
USDA's Agricultural Research Service
Don Comis
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/090904.htm
Each weekday, food scraps are collected from the Maryland Food Distribution Authority in Jessup, Md., and from small local food service and marketing establishments. Materials that do not contain metal, glass, or plastic are trucked to the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Beltsville, Md.
There, they are mixed with woodchips, leaves and other organic residuals. Several months later, some of the finished compost is delivered to the National Mall for use in gardens at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building.
For Patricia Millner, a microbiologist at the ARS Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Laboratory at BARC, this is part of research on ways to reduce the release of methane from landfills by diverting food residuals and other organic materials to composting. She conducts this research with microbiologist Walter Mulbry, who works in the ARS Environmental Management and Byproduct Utilization Laboratory at BARC.
In 2009, they are supplying compost to the inaugural "People's Garden," part of a new program for creating a community garden at each USDA facility worldwide, as well as for landscaping at the U.S. Botanic Garden and the U.S. Capitol.
Millner also makes compost available for other federal "green" projects—such as roof gardens, rain gardens and other landscaping designs—to retain water and reduce runoff at federal sites in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
As part of Millner's efforts to help the federal government model ways to compost food scraps, she has a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with RCM, LLC of Maryland to capture ammonia in the final compost to boost its nitrogen content for fertilizer use. She is comparing several types of insulated composting containers for greenhouse gas emission reduction and other cost-benefit characteristics.
Currently, about half of the carbon and nitrogen in composting materials is lost to the air, rather than being captured in the compost.
Read more about this and other research involving local food production and sustainable agriculture in the September 2009 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.

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SOUTH CAROLINA: Watermelon's hidden killer
04.sep.09
American Society for Horticultural Science
Michael W. Neff
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/asfh-whk090409.php
Researchers seek disease-resistant cultivars to sustain watermelon crop production
CHARLESTON, SC -- Watermelon vine decline (WVD) is a new and emerging disease that has created devastating economic losses for watermelon producers in Florida. Caused by the whitefly-transmitted squash vein yellowing virus (SqVYV), the disease created monetary losses estimated at $60 to $70 million in Florida during the 2004 growing season. The virus has become endemic in Florida and has appeared to varying degrees every season since it was first observed.
Symptoms of WVD typically occur at or just before harvest, when the vines rapidly collapse. Although affected fruit can appear healthy, rind necrosis and flesh degradation are often evident when fruits are cut, dramatically limiting marketability. The disease progresses rapidly; in some fields vine decline increased from 10% affected plants to greater than 80% within a week. In other cases, entire watermelon fields were lost to WVD. Clearly, the healthy and popular watermelon is under siege from the WVD plague.
Responding to producers' concerns, scientists recently identified the cause of WVD and are seeking ways to control the plague. Chandrasekar S. Kousik and colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and SWFREC, University of Florida, published the results of a research study of WVD in a recent issue of the ASHS journal HortScience. "In this study, we presented results of greenhouse and field evaluations of U.S. plant introductions for resistance to SqVYV", explained Kousik.
Although whitefly management can significantly reduce the population of this SQVYV vector, complete control is not possible. Thus, the search for long-term and sustainable strategies to manage SqVYV remains important. Development of watermelon cultivars resistant to either SqVYV or its whitefly vector is a promising alternative.
Of the 218 plant introductions (PI) evaluated in the study, none were completely immune, but several PI showed varying levels of resistance and were further evaluated in greenhouse and field trials. "Our studies indicated that these PI could significantly slow down disease development over time compared with the susceptible cultivars, but also indicated that, under extreme circumstances, the resistance offered by some of the genes may not be enough to manage the disease," Kousik said.
The identification of potential sources of partial resistance to SqVYV suggests that watermelon germplasm with moderate resistance can be developed for breeding programs. The scientists suggest that even when some of these resistant genes are moved into commercial cultivars, an integrated approach that includes the use of reflective mulch, application of pesticides to manage whitefly populations, and weed/cucurbit crop volunteer control, will be needed to fully manage WVD.
The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS Hortscience electronic journal web site: http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/2/256

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GERMANY: Pesticides -- easier detection of pollution and impact in rivers
04.sep.09
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Tilo Arnhold
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/haog-p-e090409.php
This release is available in German.
Leipzig: The long-term effects of pesticides on living organisms in rivers and on water quality can now be assessed more easily. Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have developed a tool that can estimate the harmful effect of pesticides, such as those flushed into rivers and streams from agricultural land, within minutes. "It used to be very difficult to detect which chronic effects occur," explains Dr Matthias Liess, head of the UFZ's System Ecotoxicology Department. In their new approach, the Helmholtz researchers exploit the fact that pesticides cause characteristic changes to the composition of the life community that is affected.
"You just need to find out which living creatures, e.g. insects and crabs, are found at a certain point along the river and in what numbers," Liess explains. The authorities responsible for water management usually have such data available, he adds. Liess and his colleagues have now set up a Web application where this data can be entered and evaluated to show immediately how high the level of pollution in the rivers under investigation actually is. Users download an Excel table from the http://www.systemecology.eu/SPEAR/Start.html website and then enter the numbers of each kind of organism found at each sampling site. Once the table is complete it is fed into the 'SPEAR calculator' and the user enters the region in which the samples were taken. The calculator immediately shows what the water quality in the area in question is like. Regional data is currently available for Germany, France, Finland and Western Siberia, but the system has also been tested in the UK and in Australia. There is no charge for using the service.
Liess believes the authorities can use the calculation results to take suitable steps to reduce pesticide pollution of rivers. "But our tool can do more than just identify problem areas," the Helmholtz scientist stresses. It also indicates where unpolluted stretches of river are compensating for the effect of the pollution. This is extremely important because it can show when conservation methods have been successful. Another advantage of the new tool is that in many cases, complex, expensive chemical analyses will no longer be necessary.

http://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=3714
The study was supported by the Environment Agency of England and Wales and by the European Union.
Links: http://www.systemecology.eu/SPEAR/Start.html

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