ODT 28 August 2024

Mistletoe has long been seen as one of two things – something to stand under at Christmas-time for a kiss, or a parasitic plant that grows on other trees.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/campus/native-mistletoe%E2%80%99s-bad-rap-parasite-plant-put-rest

Broader scholarship eligibility urged

https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/rural-life-other/broader-scholarship-eligibility-urged

Craig Bunt, Otago University’s inaugural professor of  agricultural innovation, said outdoor cannabis growing for medicinal purposes is a risky area, with issues around background microbial loads being one risk area.

https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/news/medicinal-marijuana-company-up-for-review/

Inaugural Professor of Agricultural Innovation at Otago University, Craig Bunt, says there has always been an approval process for GE.

“When it comes to agriculture, a lot of what we do needs approval. And so if it’s not approved, then people interpret that to mean it’s banned.”

https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350381518/pink-bras-corn-and-intriguing-political-history-genetic-engineering

Taieri College Performing Arts Centre on 2 August 2024 at 6:00pm.

https://events.humanitix.com/six-inches-of-soil-mosgiel

“…immunology researcher Dr Nils Birkholz said it could also be used in agriculture, to fight plant pathogens in crops.”

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/campus/resisting-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria

ODT Wednesday, 3 July 2024

Students in a new postgraduate qualification teaching about “farm-to-fork and beyond” are hungry to learn, a Dunedin professor says.

https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/rural-life-other/students-hungry-new-degree

As food fraud continues to grow around the world, Otago researchers have begun a ground-breaking project aimed at protecting the New Zealand wine industry from imposters.

University of Otago food science senior lecturer Dr Biniam Kebede is developing an artificial intelligence-powered hyperspectral imaging technique to test wine authenticity and traceability — all without opening the bottle.

Read more here; https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/campus/ai-developed-protect-wine-industry

University of Otago agricultural innovation student Aaron Hewson has learned a lot about apples since he started researching one of our favourite fruits.

There is an old English proverb: an apple a day keeps the doctor away. When we walk into a supermarket or go to the farmers market, we might get a choice of 10 different kinds of apples to shoo away that dastardly doctor. Perhaps this seems like a lot of options compared to the single choice of Cavendish banana we get, but it pales in comparison to the 20,000 named apple varieties found throughout the world.

Read here; https://sod.co.nz/2024/06/07/an-introduction-to-apples/

Free markets do not respond well to things that are slow to change – we need to set deep and long-lived national research, science, and technology goals

Read here; https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/06/10/free-market-approaches-do-not-sit-well-with-science/