The cost of damage to agriculture in areas affected by Typhoon No.10 is rising. Especially a number of farm crops in Hokkaido prefecture have been heavily damaged. As many as four typhoons made landfall in the prefecture or passed close to the　region just in past two weeks since Typhoon No.7 attacked Hokkaido for the first time this year on August 17. In some of the major producing areas of root vegetables and underground stem crops such as onions and potatoes, floodwaters inundated lots of farmlands. People of wholesalers in the Hokkaido prefecture are worrying that the market will soon go into great confusion. At Ota Market of the Tokyo Metropolitan … Continue reading →

Institute of Fruit Tree and Tea Science of the National Agriculture and Research Organization (NIFTS), based at Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki prefecture, made an announcement on August 30 that NIFTS successfully developed a new technology for preventing moths from flying to fruit trees by using supersonic waves similar to those emitted by bats. The technology was experimented against moths called “Conogethes punctiferalis,” causing damage to fruits, and the Institute found out that the supersonic waves are effective for reducing moth’s flying down to less than one-sixth of the usual flying in the orchard. It is expected that the technology will be useful for fruit growers to decrease use of agrochemicals against the … Continue reading →