Tuesday, June 3, 2008

JJNN 13 June 3rd, 2008

Welcome again to JJNN for Tuesday June 3rd, 2008. In a bit of personal news, I finally got around to watching Pulp Fiction. Yes, yes. You guys can finally get off my back. I am not sure it was even a very good movie. I mean, I guess it was OK, but it's not on my top 50 or so. Any way, because I watched the movie I only have time to do one news story today.

Today I will be talking about strawberries. No, I won't be telling you how to make a cool and refreshing drink for the upcoming summer days. I will be talking about the this story.

You know, I really like strawberries so I was happy to read this story. The jist of the article is that Matsushita Denkou along with a farmer's group in Hyougo prefecture said that they have been testing a special light system that is suppose to make strawberries strong against damage from diseases. Apparently Matsushita Denkou already had a light system to keep the bugs off from the strawberries, but this system is totally new.

You may be wondering how light can make strawberries strong against diseases. Well the lights shine at a certain wavelength in the ultra-violet light. The ultra-violet light helps to make the strawberries immune to certain diseases and even helps to fight some types of mold. If the farmers use this system 6 hours a day for 8 months, the number of times that the farmers have to spray agricultural chemicals is reduced by 1/3 and the amount of strawberries that comes out of a harvest is raised by 40%.

Sounds good, right? Well let's look at the money side of things. For a farm that is 1000 cubic meters in area, 30 of these lights are needed. The lights and the control system that is needed to operate the lights will cost around 1,200,000 yen. A pretty penny, but in the long run it will probably pay for itself many times over. Plus, I am up for any technology that helps out the strawberries.

Any way it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 苺(いちご). It is pronounced ichigo and means strawberry. I remember picking (very) small wild strawberries by the road when I was a kid and putting them in milk. That was a damn good drink. MMmmm... Real strawberry milk...

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

4 comments:

  1. mmm...Strawberry milk. I still do that now only I buy the strawberries at the store instead of picking them in the back yard.

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  2. Strawberries were in the front yard near the road. They sometimes tasted mysteriously like oil and road salt. The back yard was reserved for the overgrown blueberry bushes.

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  3. That's right. I forgot. Dad has mowed all the the blueberry bushes down now in his quest to have a foliage free back yard or as I like to call it, his quest to avoid mom by working in the back yard as long as possible! :)

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  4. Blueberries in milk would make a great covering for BOOBerry cereal! WAHOO!!!

    Didn't the mooses eat any of the strawberries or blueberries - that would be funny - they'd poo pink or blue!!!

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