Ecology Matters by Duke Vasey

I will teach in crisp bites. I’d like to incorporate photos of problems and develop email comments for evaluation or clarification, and inform our residents about what they are observing and why or why it isn’t a problem. My material is also online as Gazetteer author at: http://www.collierswcd.org/ and as a Daily News contributor Member: The Ecological Society of America Twitter@dennisvasey

• Mind the Gap Posted 9/23/2012 at 10:34 p.m. 0 comments

  What are the most painful choices we face protecting our watershed?

• Corn Posted 9/16/2012 at 2:50 p.m. 0 comments

  Driving through Illinois this past week you could smell the recently mowed fields.

• September Posted 9/10/2012 at 5:21 a.m. 0 comments

  Think back to a younger age when you could taste the sugar in a tomato or possibly you remember how they were described in “Ode to Tomatoes” published several years ago.

• Green Products Posted 8/5/2012 at 2:15 p.m. 0 comments

  If success or failure depended on your knowledge to ask the right questions when buying “green” clothing, equipment or food, would you get it right? For example, in the case of insect resistance traits, the genetically modified (GM) plant produces a novel protein that confers resistance to a particular insect or group of insects. To keep from replacing or repairing tires after driving over bioengineered crop stubble, would you make the correct selection?

• Draught Posted 7/29/2012 at 10:19 a.m. 0 comments

  At least one of four states, hoping to ease requirements on adding grain-based ethanol to gasoline is expected to petition the federal government as early as Monday, to remove corn as the oxygenating agent. Why? Because the worst drought in 50 years signals higher corn prices and lower margins for livestock producers.

• Diptera Posted 7/22/2012 at 9:47 a.m. 0 comments

  The Biosystematic Database of World Diptera after 12 years is now officially closed. Too bad! It provided a window into the diverse world of flies, gnats, maggots, midges, mosquitoes; keds (louse flies), bots, etc., all common names for members of the order Diptera.

• Technology Investments Posted 7/15/2012 at 5:05 p.m. 0 comments

  Back in the 1980s, Nicholas Negroponte opened an Artificial Intelligence (AI) talk by saying, "AI is 95 percent artificial and 5 percent intelligent."

• Red, White and Blue Posted 7/8/2012 at 10:26 a.m. 0 comments

  Have you ever wondered how water performs its gravity-defying act of moving upward from the roots to the leaves of a plant? How does water get all the way up to the top of a tall tree?

• Lost Land Posted 7/1/2012 at 11:10 a.m. 0 comments

  On June 25, 2012, the first 2012 League of Women Voters sponsored Candidate Forum took place. One of the moderator questions had to do with the economic base of Collier County. Based upon Property Appraiser Office records, there are approximately 1,354,936 acres in Collier County.

• Agriculture Posted 6/24/2012 at 11:07 a.m. 0 comments

  “Agriculture is the plastics of the modern era,” former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman told those attending a Future of Food Summit last week in Washington, D.C.