Total RNA for reverse transcription coupled polymerase chain reaction analysis was extracted using an RNeasy Plant Kit and treated with TURBO-DNase according to the manufacturers’ instructions. Reverse transcription was carried out with 0.5 μg total RNA using Goscript with random hexamerprimers according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Following the reaction, cDNA was diluted 1/10 for subsequent use. Semi-quantitative PCR was performed using Biomix Red and products were separated electrophoretically on a 1.5% agarose gel. Reverse transcription coupled to quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis was performed using SYBR Green JumpStart Taq ReadyMix in 15 μl reactions according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Reactions were performed in triplicate. Primers described in were designed against the conserved 3’ non-translated regions of the CMV genomic RNAs and the stable transcript elongation factor 1 alpha was used as the reference RNA. Data were analyzed using LinRegPCR to give Ct values. Relative viral RNA accumulation was calculated using ΔΔCt methodology, incorporating the EF1α transcript to control for variation in loading. Bombus terrestris colonies were connected by gated transparent tubing to flight arenas with the dimensions 72 x 104 x 30 cm containing 11 cm tall feeding towers formed from black card sitting within ‘Aracon’ bases , roofed by plastic mesh supporting a microcentrifuge tube lid containing sucrose solution. Tower height was selected because bumblebees cannot effectively resolve visual cues beyond 10 cm. Seven days prior to carrying out conditioning or free choice assays bees were allowed to feed on sucrose solution from cups placed on empty towers for three days to familiarize them with the arena.

Foraging bees were marked on the thorax with water-soluble paint and used once.Initially, cups on towers offered 30% sucrose, hydroponic channel conditioning bees to associate towers with a reward. For differential conditioning and free-choice experiments, five plants per treatment group were individually covered by towers. For differential conditioning experiments, towers hiding plants from one treatment group provided 0.3 ml quinine hemisulfate , whilst the others offered 0.3 ml of 30% sucrose. Individual foraging bumblebees were released into the arena and allowed to forage until satiated. Aborts following landing or hovering over towers offering quinine or drinking on towers offering sucrose were scored as correct choices. Between foraging bouts, towers were re-arranged randomly to inhibit spatial learning and meshes cleaned to remove scent marks. One hundred choices for each bee tested for each pair-wise comparison were recorded. In free-choice preference assays towers covering plants from both treatment groups offered equal sucrose rewards and only the first feeding choice was recorded.Artificial buzz-pollination was carried out using an electrically actuated toothbrush . Mean seed mass was obtained by dividing the mass of seeds by the total seed number for a total of five fruits per plant, with three plants per treatment group. Pollen viability was assessed by staining with fluorescein diacetate and pollen grains viewed under blue light and bright field using an epi-fluorescent microscope connected to a digital camera . For bumblebee pollination experiments two-week-old tomato seedlings were inoculated with CMV or mock-inoculated and grown in a controlled environment room for 4 weeks. At this time, the plants began flowering and were transferred to a glasshouse. Two weeks later single bumblebees were allowed to buzz pollinate flowers on three mock-inoculated and three CMV-infected tomato plants within a larger flight arena constructed from nylon netting . Two inflorescences of two to three flowers per plant were left accessible to the bee .

When each bee had made 10 visits to flowers , any buzz-pollinated flowers were labeled with a jeweler’s tag and all plants that had been visited by the bee were removed from the arena and replaced with another. A new bee was then released from the small arena into the larger arena containing plants. In total, 8 bees freely pollinated flowers from 17 mockinoculated and 14 CMV-infected tomato plants. Bumblebee visitation to mock-inoculated versus CMV-infected plants was noted and, using a stopwatch, the duration of flower sonication was recorded for each bee. The plants were left in the greenhouse for a further 8 weeks to allow fruits to develop. Further flower development on the plants was permitted. To release seeds, fruits were harvested individually into 60 ml screw-cap pots and left to ferment for 1–2 weeks before washing and counting. Fruits were either from flowers that were not buzz-pollinated by a bumblebee or from flowers that were buzz-pollinated . A further category of fruit was from flowers that were not buzz-pollinated, but were adjacent to fruit from buzz-pollinated flowers . Fruits were also harvested from eight mock-inoculated and eight CMV-infected plants that were not exposed to bees in the flight arena, but had otherwise experienced the same growth conditions as the plants used in the bee pollination experiment .Headspace volatiles were collected from tomato plants by dynamic headspace trapping over a period of 24 hours onto Porapak Q filters [50 mg, 60/80 mesh size, Supelco ] as described by Beale and colleagues. The tomato plants were contained in a 1.0 liter bell jar clamped to two semi-circular metal plates with a hole in the center to accommodate the stem. Charcoal-filtered air was pumped in at the bottom of the container at a rate of 750 ml.min-1 and drawn out through the Porapak Q filter at the top, at a rate of 700 ml.min-1. Leaf fresh weight and dry weight were measured to enable normalization of the volatile abundance. Trapped organic chemicals were eluted from the Porapak Q filter with diethyl ether for analysis by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry .

For initial investigation of volatiles by principal component analysis, volatiles were separated on a capillary GC column . The injection volume was 1μl, the injector temperature was 200°C, and helium was used as the carrier gas at a constant flow rate of 2.6 ml min−1 in an oven maintained at 30°C for 5 minutes and then programmed at 15°C.min-1 to 230°C. The column was directly coupled to a mass spectrometer with a MS transfer line temperature of 240°C. Ionization was by electron impact with an ion source temperature of 250°C in positive ionization. Mass ions were detected between 30 and 650 m/z. Data were collected using Xcalibur software . Principal component analysis on the mass spectra was performed with MetaboAnalyst 2.0 using binned m/z and per cent total ion count values. Confirmation of identities of specific organic compounds comprising the blends emitted by mock-inoculated and virus-infected plants was carried out by re-analysis of trapped organic compounds using a Thermo-Finnigan Trace GC directly coupled to a mass spectrometer equipped with a cold on-column injector. Two microliters of collected volatiles were separated on an HP1 capillary gas chromatography column in an oven maintained at 30°C for 5 min and then programmed at 5°C.min-1 to 250°C. The carrier gas was helium. Ionization was by electron impact at 70 eV at 220°C. Compounds were identified by comparison of spectra with mass spectral databases , as well as by coinjection with authentic standards on a Hewlett-Packard 6890 gas chromatograph with two different columns of different polarity .Our model tracks the interaction over evolutionary time between virus resistant and virus susceptible phenotypes in a population of diploid annual plants. The plant population size is assumed to be large and to remain constant over generations. Since CMV is a broad host range pathogen, we can reasonably make the simplifying assumption that within-generation pathogen prevalence is not affected by the density of resistance in the focal host plant species. The proportion of susceptible plants that become virus infected in each generation is therefore held constant as a parameter in our model. We model resistance as controlled by a single bi-allelic locus, with resistant and susceptible forms, and we assume R is dominant. We assume infected plants produce fewer seeds, hydroponic dutch buckets with the parameter δ controlling the proportionate number of viable seeds produced per ovary on a virus-infected plant. We additionally assume that virus resistance carries no fitness penalty when compared to uninfected susceptible hosts. If the reduction in seed number were the only consequence of virus infection, resistance would certainly fix in the plant population under such a conservative assumption on the cost of virus resistance for the plant. However, we also assume that increased attractiveness to pollinators means infected plants are more likely to reproduce, as both male and female parents. In particular, we assume the pollinator density remains constant over generations, and that this pollinator density leads to an average of γ pollinator visits per flower averaged over all plants over the entire reproductive season. We assume that flowers visited by pollinators will certainly be pollinated: by cross-pollination or by self-pollination .

Self-pollination after a visit by a pollinator can be due to either geitonogamous pollen transfer from flowers on the same plant, or via autogamous buzz-pollination . A proportion σ of the remaining ovules in flowers that are not visited by pollinators also go on to self-pollinate. The potential selective benefit to virus-infected plants is caused by pollinator preference. We assume that an individual pollinator is ν times more likely to visit a flower on an infected vs. an uninfected plant than would be expected by chance alone. This potentially increases female fitness by making ovules on infected plants more likely to be fertilized, and male fitness by increasing rates of pollen transfer from infected plants.Growth rate of resistant mutants in the vicinity of the equilibrium at which only susceptible plants are present. The panel shows a series of full two-way sensitivity analyses of the model, showing effects on the growth rate of rare mutant resistant plants in the vicinity of the equilibrium at which only susceptible plants are present, caused by independently changing pairs of parameters . All pair-wise combinations of two parameters are shown: dots on each axis show default values of each parameter. In all cases, the magnitude of the largest Eigenvalue of the Jacobian matrix at the model equilibrium–which is equivalent to the initial discrete time rate of exponential growth over successive seasons of rare mutant resistant plants -is shown by color. Note that Fig 8 in the main text characterises long-term evolutionary outcomes by distinguishing regions in which growth rates of each type of mutant are larger than or smaller than one, and so in which the equilibria can be invaded : these results therefore provide additional numerical detail in support of that figure. Growth rate of susceptible mutant plants in the vicinity of the equilibrium at which only homozygous resistant plants are present .The plant microbiota, defined here as the community of bacteria, fungi, archaea, viruses, and other microscopic organisms that live on or in plant tissues , confer many services as well as disservices to their hosts, including disease development and defense , protection against herbivory , tolerance of abiotic stress , and aid in nutrient uptake . These microbial communities associate with all plant tissues , including seeds . Seeds play a major role in plant communities as agents of dispersal, genetic diversity,and regeneration , and they have significant economic and social value through agriculture . Seeds also are a major bottleneck in natural plant populations, as they face heightened mortality from abiotic stressors, pests, pathogens, and predators . As the initial source of inoculum in a plant’s life cycle, seed microbes are can be transmitted across plant generations and have lifelong impacts . Consequently, understanding how seeds acquire and interact with their microbiota, for example, via priority effects or according to the Primary Symbiont Hypothesis , has implications for improving seed health, seedling establishment, and plant community structure. Such an approach uses culturing and/or next-generation sequencing to compare, contrast, and correlate patterns in microbial community composition, diversity, and species co-occurrences. Typically, however, these community data provide limited insights into processes such as dispersal, microbe-plant interactions, and microbemicrobe interactions. Given that seed microbial communities are highly variable across individual plants, plant species, and locations , such pattern-based data cannot always be used to predict assembly outcomes. Moreover, such studies often consider how these assembly processes occur at a single spatial scale . We hypothesize that a mechanistic, multi-scale approach would provide a more complete understanding of how microbial communities assemble in seeds, with the field of metacommunity ecology providing a theoretical framework for such an approach. Metacommunity theory accounts for the interaction between ecological processes and habitat heterogeneity across spatiotemporal scales to impact community patterns .

A study in 50 humans with clinical signs of aging showed that oral fruit extracts that contain resveratrol markedly improved multiple aging-associated parameters, including increased stratum corneum hydration and skin elasticity, decreased skin roughness and wrinkle depth, as well as reductions in the intensity of pigmented solar lentigines. In parallel, levels of plasma derivatives of ROS dramatically declined, while skin ferric-reducing ability increased. In addition, topical applications of resveratrolcontaining products also improved aging-associated signs, such as skin wrinkles, stratum corneum hydration, and pigmentation, in aged humans. But in one clinical trial in 30 subjects, oral supplement of product containing transresveratrol did not appreciably improve skin aging, despite reductions in cutaneous MDA content and elevations in SOD content. +ese discrepant results suggest that additional trials are still needed to determine whether resveratrol benefits skin aging. Other studies suggest that resveratrol exhibits antimicrobial properties. Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptides are a family of polypeptides, produced by keratinocytes, macrophages, and polymorphonuclear leukocytes, that display antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral activities. Park et al. reported that incubation of keratinocytes with resveratrol for 24 hours increased the expression level of CAMP mRNA by over 4-fold . But resveratrol may also directly inhibit microbial growth because incubation with resveratrol induced time- and dose-dependent reductions in Propionibacterium acnes colony-forming units, possibly due to disruption of the bacterial membrane. Studies have shown that resveratrol exhibits several bactericidal and bacteriostatic activity against several pathogens, u planting gutter including S. pyogenes, S. aureus, C. glabrata, and C. albicans, with minimum inhibitory concentrations as low as 1.25 mg/ml. Moreover, topical applications of 25% resveratrol cream markedly decreased lesion scores for herpes simplex infection, with an efficacy comparable to 5% acyclovir ointment, in a mouse model of herpes simplex infections.

Similar results were also obtained with topical applications of oxyresveratrol in mice infected by herpes simplex virus. Furthermore, studies also suggest benefits of resveratrol for keloids. For example, resveratrol induced apoptosis of fibroblasts from keloids, in parallel with reductions in the expression levels of mRNA for collagen 1 and procollagen 3, while increasing expression of SIRT1, suggesting a potential application of resveratrol for the treatment of keloids and hypertrophic scars. Other studies have demonstrated that topical resveratrol improves epidermal permeability barrier function and stratum corneum hydration in sodium dodecyl sulfatedamaged human skin. Additionally, both in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that resveratrol reduces skin pigmentation via inhibition of tyrosinase activity, cytokine production, and melanocytic microphthalmia-associated transcription factor expression. Yet, all of theseputative benefits of resveratrol for cutaneous function still lack sufficient clinical validation. +erefore, well-designed clinical trials are still required before resveratrol can be widely utilized in clinical settings.Keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation, which are inversely regulated, are both required to form the stratum corneum, the outmost layers of the skin, providing multiple cutaneous protective functions because resveratrol can stimulate keratinocyte differentiation while inhibiting proliferation, resulting in acceleration of epidermal maturation. +e inhibitory effects of resveratrol on keratinocyte proliferation occur via two mechanisms: activation/upregulation of SIRT1 and inhibition of protein kinase D. In keratinocyte cultures, resveratrol upregulated expression of SIRT1, leading to elevation in aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator , resulting in downregulation of aquaporin 3, and consequently inhibiting cell proliferation. Lee et al. showed that resveratrol increased the expression level and deacetylase activity of SIRT1, resulting in apoptosis. Other studies suggest that resveratrol inhibits DNA synthesis, while increasing transglutaminase activity via inhibition of protein kinase D activity.

Moreover, activation of SIRT1 by resveratrol could also increase keratinocyte differentiation. Activation of SIRT1 by resveratrol is likely via enhancement of the binding of specific substrates to SIRT1. +us, resveratrol could inhibit keratinocyte proliferation and stimulate differentiation via both activation of SIRT1 and/or inhibition of protein kinase D. Although the precise mechanisms by which resveratrol protects the skin against UV irradiation and oxidative stress are unclear, a handful of evidence points to a central role of Nrf2. +is transcription factor regulates phase 2 antioxidant enzymes, which protect against UV irradiation- and other oxidative stress-induced damage to the skin. Nrf2 deficiency accelerated UV irradiation-induced photoaging and in- flammation, while conversely activation of Nrf2 protects against UV irradiation-induced apoptosis and in- flammation. Normally, Nrf2 together with Kelch ECH associating protein 1 forms a complex, which is degraded by the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Upon oxidative stress , Nrf2 is released from Nrf2/Keap1 complex and translocates into the nucleus, where Nrf2 binds to antioxidant response element in a heterodimeric complex, consequently leading to increased production of phase 2 antioxidant enzymes. While UV irradiation can increase the production of reactive oxygen species and oxidative products, resveratrol can attenuate UV-induced oxidative stress via upregulation and/or activation of Nrf2. For example, treatment of keratinocytes with resveratrol either before or after UVA irradiation induced >50% increase in Nrf2 content, while increasing content of Nrf2 in the nuclear fraction . Similarly, treatment of either normal mice or oxidative-stressed keratinocytes with resveratrol increases Nrf2 expression and activation, leading to increased expression of phase 2 antioxidant enzymes and reductions in reactive oxygen species, ultimately protecting/ alleviating cell damage induced by UV irradiation or other oxidative stressors. With regard to how resveratrol upregulates Nrf2 expression and activity, at least three mechanisms probably are operative. One mechanism involves upregulation of SIRT1 expression. Resveratrol is a SIRT1 activator. Treatment of adipocytes with resveratrol significantly increased expression levels of SIRT1 mRNA. Upregulation of SIRT1 expressions, in turn, increases expression levels of Nrf2 and phase 2 antioxidant enzymes, while silencing SIRT1 with siRNA decreases Nrf2 protein as well as activity of ARE promotor. Moreover, upregulation and activation of Nrf2 expression by SIRT1 were also observed. +e second mechanism comprises direct upregulation of Nrf2 expression because studies have shown that resveratrol increases Nrf2 expression in kidney, heart, and lung tissues. +e third mechanism is direct downregulation of Keap1 expression. Treatment of keratinocytes with resveratrol either before or post-UVA irradiation lowers expression levels of Keap1 protein. Resveratrol-induced reduction of Keap1 expression was also observed in the kidney and lung tissues of obese and asthmatic rats. Reductions in Keap1 expression can slow Nrf2 degradation, resulting in an increase in Nrf2 expression. Other studies also showed that resveratrol stimulated Nrf2 expression and nuclear translocation without changing the expression levels of Keap1. Interestingly, Nrf2 and SIRT1 can positively coregulate each other. For example, treatments of either renal tubular cells or glomerular mesangial cells with resveratrol parallelly increased Nrf2 and SIRT1 expression.

Knockdown of Nrf2 with siRNA decreases the expression levels of SIRT1, and vice versa. +erefore, resveratrol can sequentially or separately upregulate SIRT1 and Nrf2, while downregulation of Keap1 expression, resulting in increased expression of phase 2 antioxidant enzymes, which in turn protect the skin from UV irradiation- and oxidative stress-induced damage. Finally, one study showed that inhibition of phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase prevented the activation of Nrf2 induced by pterostilbene, a resveratrol analog, suggesting that resveratrol can also activate Nrf2 via activation of phosphatidylinositol- 3-kinase. Still other mechanisms could also account for the actions of anti-UV irradiation and antioxidative stress. For example, pretreatment of keratinocytes with resveratrol almost completely prevents the activation of NFκB induced by UVB irradiation, suggesting that resveratrol-induced inhibition of NFκB activation could contribute to its anti-UV irradiation properties. Resveratrol-induced upregulation of heat-shock protein 27 and downregulation of caspase 3 could also contribute to its anti-UV irradiation property. +us, resveratrol protects skin against UV irradiation and oxidative stress via multiple mechanisms.Both in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that resveratrol also inhibits proliferation, while stimulating apoptosis of cancer cells via several mechanisms. First, resveratrol induces apoptosis and phosphorylation of MAPK/ERK and MAPK/p38 in addition to increasing expression levels of caspase 3 and p53, while conversely, inhibition of p38 abolished its apoptotic effects. It appears that resveratrol-induced phosphorylation of p53 and apoptosis is mediated by c-Jun NH2-terminal kinases because knockdown of c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase genes prevented both phosphorylation of p53 and apoptosis induced by resveratrol. +erefore, resveratrol-induced activation of the MAPK/p38 signaling pathway likely accounts, at least in part, for its anticancer effects. Regarding antiproliferation of cancer cells, resveratrol inhibits expression of MEK1-P and ERK1/2-P, leading to reductions in cyclin D1 and cyclin-dependent kinase 6 expression, planting gutter resulting in cell cycle at rest. Moreover, resveratrol also decreased c-Jun levels and reduced DNA-binding and transcriptional activity of activator protein-1, which is required for initiation of DNA synthesis. Other studies showed that inhibition of NF-κB, cyclooxygenase 2, phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase, and P450 isoenzyme CYP1A1 and induction of caspases 3 and 9 also could contribute to anticancer effects of resveratrol. +us, resveratrol induced reductions in expression levels of MEK1-P and ERK1/2-P and decreased activator protein-1 activity could contribute to its inhibition of cancer cell proliferation.+e anti-inflammatory effects of resveratrol have been demonstrated in various in vivo and in vitro models, but the mechanisms of the actions of resveratrol are often unclear, depending on the inflammatory models employed in the studies. One possible mechanism is inhibition of NF-κB signaling pathways. Hence, degradation of phosphorylated IκB would increase NF-κB activity. Resveratrol-containing mixture inhibited IκB phosphorylation and decreased NF- κB, resulting in reductions in cytokine production in keratinocytes stimulated by TNF-α . Another study suggests that inhibition of cytokine production by resveratrol seems linked to upregulation of miR-17 expression in keratinocytes stimulated with lipopolysaccharide because inhibition of miR-17 overcame the inhibitory effects of resveratrol on inflammation. But one study showed that resveratrol increases IL-8 production in keratinocytes stimulated with a combination of TNF-α and IFNc via upregulation of aryl hydrocarbon receptor expression. Inhibition of allergic contact dermatitis by resveratrol could be attributable to the downregulation of interferon regulatory factor 1/ STAT1 signaling pathway and inhibition of phosphorylation of MAPK/p38 and/or phospholipase Cc. Moreover, resveratrol inhibited proliferation and differentiation of CD+ T cells and proliferation of +17 T cells via upregulation of phosphorylated MAPK and downregulation of phosphorylated mammalian target of rapamycin in Jurkat cells Furthermore, resveratrol-induced inhibition of TNF- α-induced cytokine production in fibroblasts is via activation of SIRT1 because knockdown of SIRT1 abolishes the inhibitory effect resveratrol on inflammation.+us, resveratrol can inhibit cutaneous inflammation via a variety of mechanisms, including inhibition of NF-κB, MAPK/p38, phospholipase Cc, and p-mTOR, upregulation of miR-17, and activation of SIRT1.Cutaneous wound healing is a complex process that can be accelerated by resveratrol via stimulation of neovascularization, keratinocyte differentiation, permeability barrier maturation, and antimicrobial activity. One study showed that resveratrol accelerates cutaneous wound healing and vascularization in aged rats through upregulation of SIRT1 and adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase pathway. +e role of SIRT1 signaling in vascularization has also been demonstrated in cutaneous wounds of diabetic mice. Topical applications of resveratrol to the wounded area of diabetic mice stimulated proliferation and inhibited apoptosis of endothelial cells, leading to accelerated wound healing, while either SIRT1 inhibitor or knockout of SIRT1 abolished the benefits of resveratrol in wound healing. SIRT1-mediated benefits of resveratrol in diabetic wound healing can also be attributable to protection of endothelial cells from oxidative stress. In addition, studies in mice indicate that resveratrol accelerates cutaneous wound healing by upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor mediated by activation of at least two antioxidant enzymes. Because wound infections are the major cause of delayed wound healing, the antimicrobial properties of resveratrol could be another mechanism whereby wound healing is accelerated. Lastly, the ultimate goal of cutaneous wound healing is the formation of intact permeability barrier, which requires both lipid production and keratinocyte differentiation. +us, resveratrol could also accelerate cutaneous wound healing through its well-known ability to stimulate keratinocyte differentiation and lipid production. Collectively, the resveratrol-induced acceleration of cutaneous wound healing can be attributable to activation of SIRT1 and AMPK signaling, antioxidative stress, and enhanced formation of epidermal permeability barrier.+e mechanisms whereby resveratrol induces apoptosis and inhibition of fibroblasts include inhibition of hypoxia-inducible factor 1, in which activation stimulates fibroblast proliferation while inhibiting apoptosis, downregulation of transforming growth factor β1, miR-17, as well as expression levels of mRNA for collagen 1 and procollagen 3, whereas resveratrol induced upregulation of antimicrobial peptides is via enhancing expression of sphingosine-1-phosphate, leading to activation of N-FκB-C/EBPα signaling pathway. Resveratrol inhibits melanogenesis by at least four different mechanisms: in human melanocyte cultures, resveratrol inhibited tyrosinase synthesis and activity along with accelerated transport of newly synthesized tyrosinase to proteasomal complex, without dramatic alterations in mRNA levels of either melanocytic microphthalmia-associated transcription factor or tyrosinase; in melan-A cells, inhibition of melanogenesis by resveratrol is via induction of autophagy, leading to reduction in α melanocyte-stimulating hormone levels. +e latter stimulates melanin production and release via activation of melanocortin-1 receptor.

Additionally, the adsorption works performed by Beaver and Medina-Plaza extend from 0 to 15% ethanol by volume solutions. Extensions of this model to extraction times greater than 14 days, or outside of the temperature and ethanol ranges, would necessarily be extrapolations. All kinetic parameters are assumed to be a function of temperature only; ethanol dependence is captured in the adsorption equilibrium relationships. The proposed model groups all phenolics into three pseudo-species , rather than examining individual compounds. Further, anthocyanin concentrationswere measured in Lerno by Reversed Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatograph with a diode array detector. While the data indicate a decrease in free anthocyanin concentration towards the end of fermentation, the reaction products are not clear. Further improvements to this model would include parsing out the actions of specific phenolic to better predict overall anthocyanin and tannin behavior. Finally, this model assumes a homogenous mixture of grape solids and liquid. This is a tolerable assumption in a small fermenter, which is frequently pumped-over, such as the partially full 120 L working volume fermenters used in Lerno to collect the data used in this model. Diffusive-convective mass transfer will need to be considered when this work is extended to large industrial tanks. Despite these limitations, this model successfully predicts experimental behavior over a wide range of processing temperatures and times, dutch bucket hydroponic and is applicable to most red wine fermentations of industrial interest.Raspberry fruit are produced on a perennial shrub belonging to the vastly diversified Rubus genera of the Rosaceae family.

There are mainly two types of raspberries: red and black. Yellow raspberries are a mutated version of red raspberries that prevents the formation of red color . Purple raspberries are a hybrid between black and red raspberries. Raspberries are an aggregate fruit, a combination of individual drupelets that stay together with the help of an invisible hair-like structure. Each small drupelet is developed from a carpel, a significant characteristic of Rubus, where the mesocarps become fleshy and the endocarps become hard and form a tiny pit that encloses a single seed within each drupelet. The drupelets separate from the receptacle at harvest, creating a hollow, thimble-shaped fruit. Cane traditionally refers to aerial raspberry shoots but also often refers to rooted suckers . Raspberry plants generally start fruiting in the second year and can continue up to 15 years if properly managed. However, the canes are biennial. Usually, the cane grows in one year and fruits the next year. Canes sprouting in the first year are called primocanes , and in the second year are called floricanes . Both canes are present during the growing season . Primocane-fruiting types can produce two crops per year; onein the summer from the floricanes and the other in the fall from the primocanes. With the onset of cold temperatures, floricanes often go into a period of dormancy. Six weeks or more at 4℃ or lower is required to break dormancy. After fruiting, the entire cane senesces and dies. When second-year canes are flowering, first-year canes are growing from the crown or roots. Like other brambles, raspberry is a self-pollinated species . Fruit development occurs for 30-36 days in most cultivars . The best yields take place under sunny, cool summer conditions . Recently, the use of the high tunnels has extended the berry cultivation season both at the beginning and the end. This extension enables growers to gain more profit from the market as berry prices are usually higher during early and late seasons . Like all crops, water is very important for raspberry production.

According to Prange and DeEll , lack of water can affect the production and quality of berry fruit after harvest. However, excessive water, mostly due to high rainfall during the fruit growing period, made raspberries more susceptible to mechanical damage during transportation and storage .The red raspberry is believed to have originated in Turkey’s Ide mountains. The Romans may have expanded raspberry cultivation throughout Europe. However, the British improved and popularized raspberries throughout the middle ages and had the plant exported to New York by 1771 . In the early 1900s, raspberry cultivation got its momentum, and in 1920, New York State growers harvested more than 10,000 acres of raspberries. In 2018, there were three major raspberry production regions: Russia, Europe , and the Pacific Coast of North America . World raspberry production has grown 80% over the last 10 years. From 2010 to 2019, production increased from 373,000 tons to 684,000 tons. . In 2020, the total area under raspberry cultivation in the United States was 16,900 acres producing 111,000 tons of raspberries valued at US$469 million. In California, there were 8,000 acres, valued at US$395 million for fresh raspberries only. Canada is the biggest importer of US raspberries, and in 2021, Canada imported a total of 24,400 tons of fresh raspberries valued at $154 million from the US .A fruit’s quality is generally assessed based on its visual appearance, texture, flavor, and nutritional compounds . Raspberry quality and shelf life can be adversely affected by a variety of pre-harvest and postharvest factors. Pre-harvest factors include genetics, environment, and cultural practices. Postharvest factors such as handling, transportation, storage temperature, condition and duration, relative humidity also play important role on maintaining raspberry fruit quality. Raspberry is renowned for its aroma and flavor. Raspberry is a non-climacteric fruit and their taste and flavor mostly develop while they are ripening on the plant. The ratio of sugar and organic acids determines raspberry taste . Soluble solids from 9 to 10% and titratable acidity from 1.5 to 1.8% constitute good raspberry taste according to De Ancos .

Wang et al. evaluated raspberry fruit harvested at 5%, 20%, 50%, 80% and 100% ripe and they concluded that berries that were 50% to 80% ripe developed the same degree of SS, TA, and sugars as berries that were 100% ripe, whereas berries that were 5 to 20% ripe neverattained those properties. There are many volatile compounds, notably, α and β-ionone, linalool, α and β-pinene, caryophyllene and citral, contributing to raspberry flavor . Berry purchases are linked to several factors, the most important being freshness and origin, while price does not play a significant role . Visual quality is also very important for raspberry and a good indicator of shelf life. Brighter color without any visible decay and leakiness is perceived as fresher. Krüger et al. categorized raspberries in three groups based on their ripening stage; semi-ripe, ripe and over-ripe. They concluded that semiripe raspberries were potentially more suitable for shipping while maintaining acceptable sensory quality .Consumers have always been concerned about food quality and appearance, in general. However, consumer preference has been shifting toward fruit flavor and nutritional qualities, including their composition and level of bioactive compounds, such as vitamins, minerals, fiber, and even phenolic compounds . Raspberry fruit are 85- 90% water, ~9% SS and the remaining are insoluble solids. Raspberry fruit contain 13.6–31.1 mg/100 g Vitamin C and 0.2–83.6 mg/100 g anthocyanins . These compounds vary by cultivar, harvest time, cultural practices, environment and weather conditions . Raspberry fruit also contain a broad range of polyphenolic compounds; phenolic acids, flavanols, anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, and ellagitannins . These compounds have been extensively studied for their antioxidant capacity and impact on human health . High antioxidant capacity is believed to contribute to health benefits by ameliorating the detrimental effects of reactive oxygen species generated in the body through oxygen metabolism . Berry polyphenols also have been shown to protect against ROS-induced neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s , and red raspberries have been reported to have a neuroprotective effect . However, the impact of raspberry fruit’s high antioxidant capacity might be limited by very low uptake into the bloodstream from dietary intake . Nonetheless, they could have beneficial effects on the gastrointestinal tract as they pass along the digestive system, dutch buckets system thus preventing oxidation from foods already in the stomach and GIT or by affecting food digestion, glucose levels, and calorie usage . In addition, raspberry contains a significant amount of ellagitannins; a large group of polyphenols that are beneficial to fight cervical cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetics .Raspberries have a short shelf life of 2 to 5 days because of their natural soft texture and sensitivity to mold and other pathogens. Postharvest handling and storage conditions, including packaging, relative humidity, temperature, and light, can affect the bioactive compounds in brambles . Cooling is by far the best technology for increasing the shelf-life of horticultural produce. Low temperatures slow pathogen growth and reduce the rate of deterioration of freshly harvested commodities, thus extending shelf life and the marketing period .

The recommended temperature for raspberry storage is 0-1℃ , but it is challenging to maintain this recommended temperature during transportation and marketing. Although low storage temperatures can slow the development of Botrytis cinerea infections, they do not provide adequate control when pathogen inoculum loadsare high . Acidity and SS as well as pigment compounds such as anthocyanins play an important role in berry marketability after storage , and the presence of light and temperature during storage might affect anthocyanin compound stability .Modification of storage or transport atmospheres help maintain raspberry shelf life and quality. Controlled atmospheres or modified atmospheres are created by reducing O2 and/or elevating CO2 concentrations and have the general effect of slowing senescence and extending shelf life . The fundamental difference between CA storage and MA packaging systems is that in the CA storage system, gas levels are rigidly maintained, whereas in the MAP system, the gas mixture is flushed into the package once, if at all, and concentrations vary over time with product respiration and package permeability . Active MAP is performed by removing some amount of air from the package and replacing it with the desired gas combination . High CO2 concentrations have a general inhibitory effect on microorganism growth and development. CA composed of high CO2 and low O2 was found to be fungistatic in controlling Botrytis alli, Rhizopus nigricans, and Penicillium expansum . Nine red raspberry genotypes were tested in CA storage at 1℃ and decay was strongly suppressed across all the genotypes . Raspberries exposed to CO2 levels of 20% or higher exhibited delayed gray mold decay and extended shelf life . High CO2 concentration also slows further ripening and softening in berries. Applying CA, even for a short time of 0.5 to 3 days, increased strawberry shelf life by 3 days, as well as reduced the endogenous ethylene production and ultimately maintained lighterand brighter colored and firmer fruit . In addition, lowering the O2 concentration in the storage atmosphere can be beneficial in extending the shelf life of fresh produce . In mangoes, respiration rate decreased about 20-25% in low O2 atmosphere compared to air . Storing fruit with higher CO2 atmospheres; however, can result in off-flavor development, perhaps due to the initiation of anaerobic respiration and production of fermentative volatiles. Also, oxygen levels less than 2 kPa may cause fermentation of raspberry fruit . MA packaged strawberries developed off-flavor which the authors suggested might be linked to a specific cultivar’s susceptibility to accumulate ethyl acetate . The raspberry cultivar, Qualicum, produced more ethyl acetate in modified atmosphere packaging compared to “Meeker” and “Chilliwack” .Raspberry is a high value fruit but their shelf life is impacted by high perishability. In 2020, the United States produced 111,000 tons of raspberries, at a value of US$469 million and California alone contributed fresh raspberries worth of US$395 million . Raspberry’s delicate morphology coupled with high respiration and transpiration rates make them vulnerable to rapid deterioration after harvest. The typical shelf life of raspberries ranges from 3 to five days . Decay, leakiness, loss of firmness, darkening of the red color, and off-flavors are common limiting factors contributing to short storage life of raspberries . It is well established that cooling is by far the best technology for increasing the shelf-life of horticultural produce. Low temperatures slow pathogen growth and reduce the rate of deterioration of freshly harvested commodities, thus extending shelf life and the marketing period . The recommended temperature for raspberry storage is 0-1℃ , but it is challenging to maintain this recommended temperature during transportation and marketing. Although low storage temperatures can slow the development of Botrytis cinerea infections, they don’t provide adequate control when pathogen inoculum loads are high .

These findings highlight BA circulation through the gut-liver axis as an important regulatory component of the liver regeneration program. Taken together, both the injurious and proliferative effects of BAs on hepatocytes emphasize the importance of appropriately maintaining BA homeostasis to facilitate liver repair. The role of BA signaling during liver regeneration has been reviewed. For the thoroughness of this review, we briefly cover the role of FXR-associated pathways in regulating liver regeneration. In addition to regulating BA homeostasis, FXR controls lipid and glucose metabolism. FXR whole body KO mice exhibited a delayed liver regeneration due to dysregulated BA synthesis. Intestinal FXR was also found to facilitate liver regeneration through up-regulation of FGF15 in mice. FGF15 is an ileal-secreted enterokine that is induced by FXR to inhibit BA overproduction. Additionally, intestinal FXR KO impeded liver regeneration as a result of insufficient FGF15 activity which was rescued by administration of exogenous FGF15. As such, FGF15 KO mice suffered significantly higher lethality rates after liver resection due to hepatic failure relative to wild type mice. Furthermore, hepatocytespecific FXR KO mice also show delayed liver regeneration from inactivation of CYCLIN D and suppressed HGF-mediated signaling. In addition to the vital role of BA circulation through the gut-liver axis, cytokine and paracrine signaling molecules generated from the liver and intestine including tumor necrosis factor α , IL-6, and FGF15/19, and HGF impact liver regeneration as well. HGF treatment reduces inflammation and promotes colonic epithelial regeneration, plastic round plant pots potentially preventing translocation of harmful microbes and metabolites across the intestinal mucosa.

Taken together, liver regeneration is regulated by the enterohepatic circulation of BAs as well as cytokines and growth factors.Hepatic as well as microbial enzymes are responsible for the synthesis of various BAs . There is a species difference in BA profiles. In human, cholic acid and chenodeoxycholic acid are primary BAs . However, in mice, α-muricholic acid and β-MCA are the major primary BAs. These primary BAs are sterol compounds synthesized from cholesterol and conjugated with mainly glycine in human or taurine in mice. Primary BAs enter the intestinal lumen and undergo deconjugation, dehydroxylation, epimerization, and oxidation using bacterial enzymes. Conjugation increases the aqueous solubility of BAs and renders them largely impermeable to the intestinal epithelium, thus preventing them from exiting the intestinal lumen. The conversion of primary to secondary BAs deoxycholic acid and lithocholic acid is also mediated via bacterial enzyme 7α-dehydroxylase. Therefore, the composition of BAs in germ-free and conventional rats is drastically different; specifically, germ-free rats have elevated taurine-conjugated BAs and reduced secondary and glycine-conjugated BAs. Among BAs, CDCA has the highest binding affinity to FXR. In mice, tauro-β-MCA is an inhibitor of FXR. These findings point to the possibility that intestinal bacteria not only regulate BA deconjugation, but also BA synthesis through FXR. A cross-sectional study of patients with cirrhosis showed elevated primary BAs and Enterobacteriaceae and diminished 7α-dehydroxylating bacteria including Lachonospiraceae, Ruminococcaceae, and Blautia. Mice treated with antibiotics consisting of bacitracin, neomycin, and streptomycin had increased tauro-CA and T- β-MCA and reduced secondary BAs, which indicated the diminished intestinal 7α- dehydroxylating bacteria. In addition, antibiotic treatment also suppressed Fgf15 expression and increased Cyp7a1 expression, which indicated the regulation of microbiota on BA synthesis .

This modulation of intestinal FXR and BA synthesis carries many potential implications for liver regeneration, and requires further investigation. Additionally, total and fecal secondary BA levels were diminished in patients with cirrhotic livers with Enterobacteriaceae and Ruminococcaceae growth positively correlating with CDCA and DCA levels, respectively. Moreover, in cirrhotic patients who consumed alcohol, analysis of fecal and serum BA levels, serum endotoxin and stool microbiota revealed increased mRNA levels of inflammatory cytokines as well as secondary hydrophobic BAs. Such elevation in cytotoxic secondary BAs may compromise intestinal epithelial integrity and contribute to dysbiosis, which in turn impairs liver regeneration. Taken together, these findings implicate the gut microbiota in modulating the production and composition of BAs.While intestinal bacteria modulate BA synthesis, BAs can mutually influence the gut microbial population. In a FXR-dependent manner, conjugated BAs can exert antimicrobial effects in the digestive tract. Consequently, FXR KO mice exhibited higher densities of ileal bacteria and compromised epithelial barrier integrity. This effect was also observed in mice with biliary obstruction and reversible by administration of a FXR agonist. Conversely, hydrophobic, taurine-conjugated BAs enhanced the growth of sulfate reducing gut bacteria, leading to a “leaky gut” with increased antigen and bacterial translocation, cholelithiasis, carcinoma, inflammatory bowel disease, and colorectal cancer. Moreover, a low-fat diet supplemented with TCA, promoted changes in mouse host BA composition, which can markedly alter conditions for gut microbial assemblage, resulting in dysbiosis and disrupted immune homeostasis. However, an increase in intestinal T-β-MCA caused by tempol, an antioxidant, reduced the colonic population of Lactobacillus, decreased bile salt hydrolase activity in the feces, and inhibited the intestinal FXR signaling.

This evidence suggests that the gut microbiota, as an “organ”, is capable of adapting to dynamic changes in intestinal environment. Exogenous administration of CA up-regulated bacterial 7α-dehydroxylation-mediated DCA production and altered the gut microbiota population with increased abundance of Firmicutes over Bacteroidetes in rat. In addition, exogenous CA increased pathogenic Clostridia and Erysipelotrichi populations, which can lead to colitis and cirrhosis. Overall, it appears that factors influencing either the BA composition or gut microbial diversity may also significantly impact on liver function and regeneration.Intestinal pathologies are linked to factors involved in liver injury or regeneration. For example, small bowel resection in piglets caused gut microbiota dysbiosis, which resulted in significant BA dysregulation and harmful clinical outcomes including steatorrhoea, persistent diarrhea, liver injury, and impaired regeneration. Small bowel resection also interrupted FXR-mediated signaling pathways, which are essential for liver regeneration. Increased intestinal permeability in alcoholic patients was positively correlated with severity of cirrhosis in alcoholic patients. A “leaky gut” caused endotoxemia in rats and humans and contributed to alcohol-induced hepatic cirrhosis and dysfunction. Furthermore, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in rats was associated with compromised intestinal barrier integrity and elevated LP. Knockout toll-like receptor 4, an important modulator of innate immune response to LPS, resulted in aggressive onset of colitis and subsequent bacterial translocation to mesenchymal lymph nodes. Sepsis-induced liver and colonic epithelial damage could be ameliorated by probiotic VSL#3, which restored the diversity of the intestinal microbiota. This study showed that administration of a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma inhibitor completely abolished the anticipated probiotic benefits, suggesting that VSL#3 treatment may promote liver regeneration through a PPARγ-mediated pathway. Interestingly, liver regeneration was found to be accelerated in liver-specific PPARγ-null mice on a normal diet, but impaired when mutant mice suffered diet-induced fatty liver, suggesting that PPARγ inhibition may be detrimental in a state of intestinal dysbiosis. Bioactive peptide factors from Bifidobacterium infantis were also shown to improve epithelial cell barrier function and reduce inflammation, implying a potential pathway through which certain beneficial bacteria may enhance liver regeneration by protecting against hepatic damage. Metabolic pathways may also exert a hepatoprotective effect following liver injury. Parenteral administration of glutamine after liver resection dramatically increased liver regeneration by promoting hepatic alanine uptake and intestinal glutamine metabolism. Protein synthesis in colonic epithelium was increased, whereas bacterial translocation and endotoxin levels were greatly reduced. This improvement in intestinal epithelial barrier function may shield the liver from excessive endotoxemia after liver resection.Hepatic diseases have been linked to altered microbial diversity in the intestines that may create a positive feedback cycle that exacerbates hepatic injury and impede liver regeneration. Alcoholic liver disease patients generally had contracted Bacteroides species and expanded Proteobacteria species. This gut dysbiosis was also correlated with elevated serum endotoxin, likely from excessive bacterial translocation. The presence of endotoxemia along with reduction in Bacteroides density is expected to negatively impact liver regeneration. The study of liver steatosis, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, has proven valuable to illuminating the downstream consequences of gut microbiota alterations. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis provokes an innate immune response, which stimulates hepatic inflammation through cytokines such as TNFα. Obesity-induced nonalcoholic steatohepatitis also perturbed gut microbiota composition by decreasing total microbial diversity, nft hydroponic most likely by Bacteroidetes species contraction. Hepatic lipid contents in patients with choline deficiency have also been shown to affect gut microbial diversity. Treatment with a combination of five Chinese herbs was found to promote growth of short chain fatty acid producer Collinsella while improving steatosis in rats. This altered gut microbiota associated with steatosis, particularly diminished Bacteroidetes abundance, may indicate gut dysbiosis and propagation of further hepatic injury.

Other etiologies, such as GI diseases, can also influence hepatic injury through modulation of the gut microbiota. In a rat model of irritable bowel syndrome, administration of Lactobacillus casei and Bifidobacterium lactis either before or after irritable bowel syndrome induction alleviated inflammation and apoptosis in both the colon and liver. Together, there is an intimate relationship between hepatic metabolism, microbiota, and liver injury as well as regeneration.It is well recognized that diet and nutrition play a significant role in the etiology of metabolic diseases and that affects tissue injury and repair. However, the precise mechanisms by which diets affect our health status and outcomes, particularly in the GI system, are poorly understood. Despite the exponential growth in marketing of synbiotics and probiotic products, there is a lack of established mechanistic links between gut microbiota alterations and physiological responses from the host. The current summary provides promising evidence, which indicates intestinal bacteria and BAs cross talk within the gut-liver axis and jointly regulate nutrient absorption, liver metabolism, and inflammatory processes. Thus, BA and bacteria-mediated signaling within the gut-liver axis is crucial for proper execution of injury response and repair, such relationship is summarized in Figure 3. It is critical to gain insights into how nutrient-host and microbiota-host interactions influence an individual’s predisposition to injury and tissue repair. Due to the intricate networks of implicated pathways as well as scarcity of available information, it seems that nutrigenomic, metabolomics, and microbiota profiling approaches are warranted to provide a better understanding regarding the impact of the aforementioned factors in influencing liver function and healing.Elderberry is a part of the Viburnaceae family and grows all over the world, including Europe, North America, and Asia. Due to the vast geographic and morphological variety within Sambucus, there have historically been many species within the genus. However, a reorganization by Bolli reclassified some of the most common species under Sambucus into subspecies of S. nigra. More recently, elderberry was moved out of the Adoxoaceae family, which had already been changed before when elderberry was taken out of the Caprifoliaceae family. These changes have impacted the three subspecies most of interest in this work: the European elderberry S. nigra ssp. nigra; the American elderberry S. nigra ssp. canadensis; and the blue elderberry S. nigra ssp. cerulea . However, due to wide acceptance of this naming scheme for the subspecies, it will be used through this work to align with the current naming, but previous works cited may use the former species names. Furthermore, some sources refer to the entire plant as an “elder”, while others refer to the plant as “elderberry”, which is also used to denote the fruit of the plant. In this work, “elderberry” is used to discuss the plant as well as the fruit. “Elderflower” is used to refer to the blossoms of the plant. European elderberry is the most well-studied and widely used subspecies of elderberry in the market. This subspecies grows throughout the European continent, including countries such as Slovenia, Portugal, and Austria. The fruit and flower have been studied for decades for their composition and bioactivity, and while elderberry and elderflower are not new ingredients to the market, they have garnered more attention in the last several years as consumers look for more natural remedies and supplements to support their health. This has been especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which elderberry became a popular ingredient in immunity-supporting supplements. Thus, investigating other elderberry subspecies like the blue elderberry, the focus of future chapters, allows for farmers in the United States to capitalize on this demand, but more information is needed on this particular plant if it is going to be used in consumer products.There is a long, rich history of the use of different parts of the elderberry plant by many cultures. For example, the wood has been used for kindling and musical instruments. Indeed, the name of the plant is derived from various ancient words related to instruments. The flowers and berries have been used in a variety of beverages, foods, and other herbal supplements.

One might expect that certification bodies, such as CCOF and QAI, would lose revenues because of the reduction in the size of their international certification programs, but Jaclyn Bowen, General Manager of QAI, said that she expects to see a net gain for the company because these changes will enable them to focus on more important industry issues. Concerns Though the public reception of the agreement has been mostly positive, there are critics who worry that this will lead to the erosion of animal rights in the European Union because the U.S. organic program has much less strict animal rights regulations. Also, the criticism could be leveled that all such Equivalence Agreements are inappropriate because national organic standards reflect the preferences of consumers in those countries, so harmonization of standards could lead to a decline in consumer utility. However, a study by Sawyer et al. compared the preferences of consumers in the U.S., UK and Canada, through surveys in which subjects ranked preferences for different organic standards. The results suggested that consumers do not have a strong attachment to the current national organic standards.The agreement set up an Organics Working Group, made up of representatives from the USDA, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the European Commission. This group is scheduled to meet once a year with the purpose of exchanging information on organic practices and further harmonizing the regulations between the U.S. and the EU. Specific topics to be discussed include: animal welfare, 5 gallon plastic pots use of veterinary drugs in organic production, GMOs and the avoidance of contamination, and monitoring of conversion practices.

The Working Group is also tasked with reviewing instances of non-compliance with organic standards and with conducting a comprehensive review of the agreement by January 2015. However, since a number of discrepancies between the EU and U.S. organic programs were ignored for the purposes of this agreement, there is a risk of consumer resistance and scandal. For example, if in the future U.S. organic produce marketed with the EU organic logo are revealed to have a GMO content higher than the EU threshold level of 0.09%, this could provoke a political backlash. The Organics Working Group is supposed to help address such potential controversies and to adjust the agreement accordingly, but this is far from an adequate control mechanism to prevent such problems. It seems that both the U.S. and the EU have accepted the risk of potential political problems in the future for the immediate promise of increased organic trade.Production of organic fruits and vegetables is growing in the United States, and many consumers are willing to pay a substantial price premium because they perceive that organic produce has certain desirable qualities. Much of the economic research on the prices of organic versus conventional produce focuses on the demand side of the produce market and analyzes consumer willingness to pay for organic. Little existing research examines the extent to which supply side factors and costs of production influence organic price premiums, nor how farm gate price premiums compare to retail premiums. These premiums derive from a number of factors: there may be a limited supply of organic produce relative to the demand, unit production costs for organic farmers are usually higher than for conventional farmers, and processors and marketers may not benefit from the economies of scale that are available in conventional markets.. Identifying the factors that contribute to organic price premiums and differences in premiums between farm gate and retail prices is an initial step to better understanding the nature of the organic produce market—an important and growing niche in U.S. and California agriculture. This article investigates factors that comprise organic price premiums by comparing costs of production, farm gate prices, and retail prices of organic and conventional strawberries.

Do differences in the cost of production of organic produce explain the observed differences in the prices of organic and conventional produce? Are the price premiums at the farm gate similar to the price premiums observed at the retail level?We examine the prices of fresh organic strawberries in California as an example of whether and how price premiums are transmitted from the producer to the consumer. We calculate correlations of farm gate and retail prices for organic and conventional strawberries in California, controlling for seasonality, and we further calculate the correlation of organic price premiums at the farm gate and retail levels. Price correlations close to one indicate that the farm gate and retail markets move together; correlations far from one, on the other hand, indicate that there may be inefficiencies of arbitrage or high, variable marketing costs incurred between the farm gate and retail levels of sale. We find that the relation between farm gate and retail price premiums is ambiguous, likely because farm gate prices explain little of the variation in retail prices for either organic or conventional strawberries.We analyze the weekly average shipping point price data and retail price data from the Agricultural Marketing Service of the USDA. For many organic fruits and vegetables, the AMS database either does not include organic shipping point prices or the prices are only available for a few weeks each year. Consequently, we focus our analysis on strawberries for which both organic and conventional price data are available for several months of the year. Further, we use shipping point price premiums to represent farm gate prices because they are highly correlated for strawberries. Various factors often make the data difficult to compare across organic and conventional products, limiting the scope and breadth of analysis. Prices for fresh produce vary substantially depending on weather conditions, season, etc. Also, strawberries are often sold in packages of different weights or berry sizes. We can control for only some of these factors in the comparisons that follow. At the farm gate level, strawberries are usually sold in flats consisting of a fixed number of containers, each of a certain weight.

The most data are available for flats of eight 1-lb containers for the Salinas-Watsonville region of California. Figure 1 shows how farm gate price premiums changed between 2007 and 2012 during the summer months. The gaps represent missing data, primarily for the winter months when berries are supplied from Southern California, elsewhere in the United States, or by imports. On average, the farm gate premium for organic strawberries is $0.61 per pound. For average conventional prices of $1.11 per pound between 2007 and 2012, this represents a price premium of about 55%. The price premiums of strawberries vary substantially throughout the year, which is consistent with the findings of previous literature. Jiang and Goodhue find evidence that strawberry promotions play a substantial role in determining the retail price. A seasonal pattern of price premiums is not readily apparent in our data, but seasonal changes in availability of strawberries and other substitutes, along with changes in promotions, likely explain some of the variation in the price premiums that we observe. For retail prices, we use data collected by the Fruit and Vegetable Market News, which surveys more than 200 retailers, consisting of approximately 17,000 individual stores, for their online weekly advertised prices. The majority of the strawberry data are for 1-lb packages. We analyzed prices for the Southwest region of the country for the weeks corresponding to the Salinas-Watsonville price data. The retail price data are the weighted average prices for the stores surveyed for conventional and organic strawberries from 2007 to the present. Figure 2 shows the retail price premiums. The average price for a pound of conventional strawberries was $2.22 and the average price for a pound of organic strawberries was $3.22. This means that the average premium was $1.00 per pound, round pot or 45% over the conventional retail price of strawberries. One explanation for the existence of a price premium is differences in production costs of organic produce versus conventional. Using the calculated cost of production for conventional strawberries in 2010 from the UC Cooperative Extension Cost and Return Studies, we estimate the cost per pound to grow and harvest conventional and organic strawberries. Organic strawberry fields may yield more than 25% fewer strawberries than their conventional counterparts. As a lower bound for the cost difference, we look at the difference in cost of growing 25% fewer strawberries per acre using the same value of inputs. Table 1 shows the estimated cost per pound in 2010 to grow and harvest organic and conventional strawberries, as well as the average farm gate and retail prices in the same year. The price premiums are between 40–45% for both farm gate and retail prices; however, the estimated cost of producing organic strawberries is only 13% higher, using our limited measure. This suggests that production cost differences explain some,but not all, of the price premiums. More complete cost data over several years could clarify this result.The correlations between farm gate and retail prices of organic and conventional strawberries provide evidence that there may be little correlation of price premiums. The weekly retail prices of organic and conventional strawberries are only weakly correlated with their respective farm gate prices. In fact, we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the prices have zero correlation.

This suggests that farm gate prices have little influence in determining the variation in prices that consumers pay for strawberries. Consequently, the farm gate price premium likely has little predictive power to explain the premium consumers pay for organic versus conventional strawberries. The sample size in our analysis is not large enough to assess how strong the relationship between farm gate and retail price premiums is, and a longer time series is needed to compare the price premiums directly. Understanding how retail and farm gate price premiums are related is important for predicting shifts in the supply and demand of organic strawberries. Changes in the price premiums of organic produce are likely to affect the number of farmers and acreage in organic strawberries, imposing a simultaneous relationship between price and supply. Figure 3 indexes the changes in acres of conventional and organic strawberry fields in California, with 2000 as the base year. In 2000 there were 509 acres of organic strawberry fields and 27,600 acres of conventional strawberry fields. By contrast, organic strawberry acreage, although on an overall upward trend, has fluctuated dramatically. This study provides evidence that farm gate and retail prices move separately in the markets for both organic and conventional fresh strawberries. Since the farm gate and retail prices for both organic and conventional strawberries are not highly correlated, the premiums are also weakly correlated.The lack of correlation might be due, in part, to changes in the number of farmers and acres growing organic strawberries or changes in advertising and marketing at the retail level. The finding that retail and farm gate prices of organic and conventional strawberries are not highly correlated suggests that variation in retail marketing has a substantial influence on changes in the retail prices and consequent retail price premiums. Additional research with a longer time series and data on retail price promotions might shed more light on the reasons why retail and farm gate fresh strawberry markets operate distinctly for both conventional and organic berries.Tephritid fruit flies are well-known agricultural pests, and there are approximately 4500 species worldwide . As typical herbivores, host plant expansion is an important survival strategy for tephritid flies, especially when introduced into new areas. Host plant expansion is the ability of an herbivore to use novel host plants without losing their ability to use their original hosts , which facilitates the establishment of tephritids when entering new geographic areas and expanding their damage . Therefore, understanding the mechanism of host plant expansion will be helpful for the control of tephritid pests. Host expansion is well documented in the most destructive species of the genera Anastrepha, Bactrocera, Ceratitis, Dacus, and Rhagoletis among tephritid flies because they have expanded their range worldwide . For example, the ancestral hosts of Zeugodacus cucurbitae  in India are primarily cucurbits, but it began to infest papaya in Hawaii , and it expanded its host range to include mango in Africa . The peach fruit fly Bactrocera zonata  expanded to oranges and tomatoes when introduced from southeastern Asia to Egypt . Because of the typical frugivorous pest, the tephritids spend some stages of life from eggs and larvae to pupae in the fruit of host plants.

The success of both CSF and CRP can be at least partially attributed to their privileged cultural, class and ethnic positions. If race, class and ethnicity are encoded in bureaucracy both in the degree of difficulty to navigate and the unconscious expectations of its gatekeepers, then it can have significant effects on who has access to power structures. Privilege is itself a method of creating invisibility. In my interview with Jon Kindleberger, the Community & Economic Development Agency employee who has worked closely with Desi to gain approval within the City for the Community Rejuvenation Project’s paid murals, he made it clear that Desi’s extraordinary ability to pull together different stakeholders – including those in power – played a major role in getting the commission. Kindleberger discussed the process for getting approval to put up a mural on the side of a Smart & Final store on a busy street which had been heavily tagged, repeatedly.Foucault’s concept of governmentality dovetails neatly into the more modern concept of neoliberalism; in each, citizen-subjects are asked to play an active role in their own self-government . Foucault’s conception of governmentality was often interpreted as the work of an all-powerful centralized State, a misinterpretation which Matthews emphasizes. Instead of an all-seeing state, the conception of a fractured state fits much more neatly into neoliberal conceptions of the state. The neoliberal trend within city governments in the past decades to outsource essential city functions such as garbage collection to a corporation is clearly recognized and documented. But is the pattern of governments ceding control of basic functions such as graffiti abatement or park maintenance to nonprofits part of the same trend? Does the fact that nonprofits have a mission to serve the public good make this a comparison invalid? Pudup and Peck and Tickell would say that voluntary and third-party initiatives focused on moral responsibility and changing behaviors or improving selves are directly related to processes of neoliberalism.

As state sponsored policies and programs designed to minimize public risk declined since the 1970s, large pots plastic programs focused on encouraging individual responsibility flourished. With this shift of responsibilities, many questions arise: Are the publics served by cities and nonprofits necessarily the same “public”? How does access or representation change when city functions are assumed by nonprofits?Bureaucracy sets a framework for much of the material work and contested imaginings I examine in the dissertation. It sets a structure which groups can try to work against, adapt themselves, or to which they can demonstrate alternatives — but they are always inextricably in relationship with the City’s bureaucracy. It sets the limits on the field of action and many of the discursive possibilities as well. All of the organizations examined have a main goal of increasing social good through attempts to change the material behavior of citizens. Both the gardens and aerosol art projects funded did so with the express promise of creating more ideal subjects, by encouraging the consumption of healthier food or decreasing the occurrence of tagging on public property. These smaller behavior changes, and the physical changes to the city meant to encourage them such as gardens and murals, change the landscape of the city in ways that are meant to specifically combat “blight,” in both its economic and physical forms. The “zones of obscurity” discussed in the previous chapter are tools employed to accomplish these transformations of blight spaces through: strategic ignorance; classification as a tool to create invisibility; ways that race, class and ethnicity are overlooked yet encoded in bureaucratic processes; and the inability of those within bureaucracy to see bureaucratic processes clearly. These are both active and passive, conscious and unconscious ways in which difficult relationships are navigated. Should we view public-nonprofit collaborations as a new form of neoliberalism? Although these collaborations are presented as new and progressive solutions, I think in large part they replicate the overall neoliberal push in local governments since the 1970s. A key question is whether the publics served by cities and nonprofits necessarily the same “public.” I would argue that although they attempt to be the same public, nonprofits simply do not have the reach nor the mandate to ensure the full participation of all aspects of society, and when they attempt to employ city-mandated community outreach in good faith , they necessarily only reach a small slice of the public.

Access and representation cannot help but shift under new control of space, usually towards those publics who choose to engage with the nonprofits. The City must maintain at least an attempt at protecting the rights and access of all of its citizens; the nonprofits are less compelled to do so. Governmentality links race, space and power, using the tools of blight classification and neoliberalism. Bureaucratic imaginings have material effects and co-produce space, often reinforcing racial divides with or without the intention to do so because these imaginings occur within an already existing framework of structural racism and privilege. In the next chapter, we see how our bureaucratic framework was applied on the ground in a city-nonprofit collaboration. We examine in more ethnographic detail the Urban Farm project that arose from Union & Fitzgerald City Parks, and how material changes to the landscape impacted neighborhood race and class divisions.The first identified gardening movement was a response to the Panic of 1893 and included Detroit’s mayor encouraging individuals to plant “potato patches,” to great success . The city of Detroit cultivated 455 acres of vacant land and provided seed potatoes to 945 families, after which the idea of potato patches were replicated in several large cities throughout the country . Even in this earliest instance of a gardening movement as a solution to a crisis, we see the beginnings of gardens as a form of discipline and the production of subjects. The movement’s organizers conceived gardens as a form of “work relief” and a way to instill self-respect and independence among the poor . By “instilling self-respect,” a phrase that frequently arose during the next century of gardening movements, they meant cultivating an Anglo-Saxon work ethic along with the cultivation of potatoes. Gardening was deeply intertwined with race and class anxieties over immigration and overcrowding during the 1890s, which were deemed a threat to social order and national identity. A gardening proponent in 1910 argued that gardens were used “to teach [the poor] in their work some necessary civic virtues: private care of public property, economy, honesty, application, concentration, self-government, civic pride, justice, and the dignity of labor and the love of nature . . .” . Many of these benefits would still be cited by community garden boosters of today, perhaps using slightly different terms; the most relevant to the study at hand is the first listed, “private care of public property,” seen at Union Plaza Urban Farm. Gardens were repeatedly seen as a crucial “buffering mechanism,” softening the blow of economic collapse as social service networks were strained to their breaking point . Other surges of national gardening occurred successively in response to twentieth century crises. During World War I, patriots were encouraged to create Liberty Gardens through a massive national marketing campaign. Relief gardens were created as a response to the Great Depression, with some individual plots created and others set up according to an “industrial plan,” which attempted to mimic factory work with the goal of preparing gardeners for such work when it became available, a clear use of gardens in the creation of capitalist subjects. Individual allotments during the Great Depression were intended to instill responsibility and independence and help delay application for direct poor relief .

The most recent community gardening movement has occurred since the seventies, which Pudup argues is not coincidental with the simultaneous emphasis on neoliberal ideologies and the decreasing role of the government during this time. A key part of neoliberalism is to cultivate an ethos of individual responsibility, and the trend towards nonprofits taking over key functions of state and city governments, as I examine in this dissertation, plant plastic pot is an important part of this ethos. Community gardens can be a perfect example of “when voluntary and third sector initiatives organized around principles of self-improvement and moral responsibility stand in for state sponsored social policies and programs premised on collective responses to social risk” . While community gardens today are often portrayed as an apolitical space of unalloyed positive benefit or a space of resistance against an industrialized food system, historically they have repeatedly been used as sites for the creation of desired subjectivities in the maintenance of the status quo. It is certainly possible that a garden can be of positive benefit to community members, a way of resisting an industrialized food system, and simultaneously a method of subjectification which reinforces the positions of those in power. I would argue that the Union Plaza Urban Farm Project achieves a complex mix of all three results.When City Slicker Farm decided to use gardens to address perceived socialills in West Oakland, the model they turned to was what they call the Community Market Farm. Vacant lots were fenced with posted volunteer hours and farm apprentices would plant beds using biointensive methods to produce high yields of nutrient-dense vegetables. The produce was weighed and measured, and then distributed at a weekly Saturday donation-based sliding scale farm stand. A tension over access was there from the beginning, built into City Slicker Farms’ chosen model where gardens were fenced for most of the week and only accessible with the mediation of someone from the nonprofit, yet still labeled “community” space. Rosenthal became the first Executive Director, and the nonprofit eventually created seven community market farms in West Oakland, mostly on land loaned to the nonprofit. Eventually, City Slicker Farms also created the Backyard Garden program to train residents to cultivate their own gardens. The mission of City Slicker Farms is “to empower West Oakland community members to meet the immediate and basic need for healthy organic food for themselves and their families by creating high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens.” The Union Plaza Urban Farm project eventually became the largest of these community market farms. In 2006, as recounted by City Slicker Farms’ Executive Director Barbara Finnin, the nonprofit was approached by West Oakland’s Councilperson, Nancy Nadel, who proposed a unique collaboration between City Slickers and the City of Oakland. The farm would create a special relationship between the city and a nonprofit, essentially allowing the nonprofit to take over apark owned by the city, which was unprecedented. Nadel offered City Slicker Farms control of two parks, Union Plaza & Fitzgerald Parks, in a traditionally low-income area of West Oakland near several scrap metal recyclers.Several times in the interview, Phrine referred to the idea that the City wanted the space “clean.” Nadel, based on the idea that this was a “blighted” area, gained City Council approval to use public Redevelopment5 funds to allow City Slicker Farms to turn a city park into a market garden; the produce would then be distributed free or sold on a sliding scale to neighborhood residents using their existing farm stand model. The Oakland City Council unanimously passed a resolution on March 31, 2009 allocating the redevelopment funds to create a community market farm at Union Plaza, administered by Oakland Parks & Recreation .6 As recounted by Barbara Finnin, City Slickers realized that they were entering into a neighborhood where tensions ran high between older and newer residents, across race lines, and along class divides. Before deciding to pursue the urban farm conversion, City Slicker employees met with local residents and park users to ask how they would feel about an urban farm in Union Plaza. CSF formed a Community Advisory Panel to involve local residents. As we will see later in the chapter, CSF employees themselves had varying perspectives on whether communities were actually engaged. However, they decided that the project would be more beneficial than detrimental to the neighborhood, and would transform the nonprofit’s vegetable production capacity by increasing their area of garden space by 40%. Finnin sums up the nonprofit’s rationale in this way: “This is a park where people are seeing problems and it’s an opportunity for actually community-building.

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the earliest stages of colony development are especially important for ultimate colony growth and success. For example, early season resources have disproportionate impacts on colony growth and reproductive success . Colonies grow exponentially throughout the nesting season, and the number of workers produced directly corresponds to the number of reproductives produced . Thus, queens likely benefit from being able to rapidly establish nests in spring. This also is consistent with the pattern that bumble bee species that emerge from diapause and begin nesting earlier in the spring are less likely to be declining, relative to those that emerge later in the season . This evidence, along with our finding that queen survival and reproduction increase upon emergence of the social environment, collectively suggest that intervention strategies that target this early nesting stage and promote the production and maintenance of early season workers are needed for effective conservation of this solitary nest-founding, social lineage. Bumble bees are the most economically important native pollinators in North America and play essential roles in pollination networks in wild plant communities . Early nesting queen bumble bees play a vital role in early season pollination of wild plants and crops such as blueberry, because they emerge early in the season when temperatures are relatively cool and few other pollinators are able to fly . Despite the economic and ecological importance of early nesting queens, current conservation strategies focus primarily on supporting bumble bee colonies during the social phase of their life cycle . Thus, the needs and unique biology of early nesting queens remain largely unknown and unaddressed , square pots for planting although this stage may represent a particularly important demographic stage for bumble bee populations.

Solitary queens must both forage and perform all the tasks required for colony success and reproduction, so this stage may respond strongly to environmental stressors such as diminishing or degraded floral and habitat resources, urbanization, pesticide use, and higher temperatures. Ultimately, the sensitivity of this life stage may help explain global declines in bumble bee populations .Given that workers regulate queen physiology in the ways we have demonstrated, the timing of worker emergence in the nest, as well as the maintenance of those workers, likely impacts queen fitness, colony developmental trajectories and ultimately nesting success in bumble bees. Thus, we propose that bumble bee conservation regimes should focus more heavily on the early nesting period to support the emergence and maintenance of early-season workers in young colonies. For example, ensuring ample, pesticide-free forage and nesting resources in the early spring, particularly in agricultural, urban and other degraded and disturbed habitats, is one concrete action that would be predicted to have substantial positive impacts on nesting success. Current conservation regimes often focus on mitigating stressors in mid-summer , but focusing on the early spring may be just as important, if not more important, for supporting bumble bee population success. Additionally, more research investigating the unique needs and stressors affecting early season queens is essential to developing targeted conservation regimes specific to this life stage. For example, the effects of increased environmental stochasticity , potential phenological mismatches between queen emergence and floral blooms and warming temperatures , on early season queens remain open areas for future climate change-related research. A more in depth understanding of the impacts of parasites and pathogens on early season queens, specifically , is also needed .

Our findings highlight unique aspects of the solitary nestfounding stage in social insects and underscore the importance of conservation interventions that support this early nesting period.The future happens as we imagine it into existence. This dissertation explores the public power of imagination in creating shared worlds and how the material effects of these imaginings co-constitute space. In my research, bureaucrats, gardeners and aerosol muralists are all actively inscribing space and claiming ownership over it, through their actions and material interactions; this process of cocreation defines the legality and subjectivity and economics of the people and institutions involved. The work of shaping worlds is in large part what to make visible – and invisible. These imaginings become a way of making people see – a constitutive vision. Aesthetics matter. I pay attention to the material effects of imaginings by turning to documents: photographs, pamphlets, magazines, videos, websites which contain visual representation of all kinds. These are the minions of imaginings, the workers which create the constitutive vision and birth new worlds. Imagination is no longer regarded as a synonym for fantasy or illusion but an increasingly common analytical trope in anthropology in the last few decades . It is a way to maintain a lively multiplicity and agency for the groups we study by producing systems of meaning that enable collective interpretations of social reality but allowing for the possibility to project goals and seek to attain them. Nor is imagination understood as simply residing in individual minds in the form of aesthetic considerations. Anderson uses imagination as the basis for a shared sense of belonging and attachment to a political community ; many others have used the terms to explore the categorization of human subjects so as to govern them more efficiently . In short, imagination, viewed as ‘‘an organized field of social practices,’’ can be seen as a key ingredient in making social order . However, we must avoid a clear trap in the term itself. It is no coincidence that the term “imagination” came into use just as anthropologists were straining against the term “culture” for its fixity, lack of agency, and turns toward essentialism . In my work I do not want the term to be a mere vague, holistic placeholder and to avoid the same pitfalls I have focused on the material effects or concrete processes through which imaginaries are enacted upon the world, an analytical emphasis which I’ve appreciated in the subfield of Science & Technology Studies . In STS, the concept of imagination is often combined with technology to form “sociotechnological imagination” or “technologies of the imagination” , square pots plastic referring primarily to the “diverse manners or indeed styles by which imaginative effects are engendered” . I will use a simplified definition of technology as “all aspects of action upon matter” . I find STS to be a fruitful starting point because of its rootedness in materiality . Imagination is, by nature, a somewhat ineffable concept, and I find it most useful tothink about and track imaginings through their material effects on the world. Jasanoff and Kim examine the concept of “sociotechnical imaginaries” through contrasting examples of how different state powers have created national imaginaries relating to their conception of nuclear power.

They define national sociotechnical imaginaries as ‘‘collectively imagined forms of social life and social order reflected in the design and fulfillment of nation-specific scientific and/or technological projects.’’ Imaginaries, in this sense, at once describe “attainable futures and prescribe futures that states believe ought to be attained.” However, Jasanoff has been more interested in the effects of imagination at the national level or at a global level, in an attempt to explain how scientific representations of the natural world acquire a hold on people’s beliefs. I would like to apply their use of the term to describe the imaginings of city governments, for example, but also preserve its use for much smaller entities, more suitable to the scale of the ethnographic work I undertook. So for instance, I discuss the imaginaries of formal entities such as nonprofit organizations, but also less formal groups such as homeless or scavenger populations. Imaginaries are not simply dictated by the nation or city state – these groups are simply one among many competing to materialize their imaginings. Neither does imagination reside only in the strivings of the individual mind. The concept has the potential to bring together the collective yearnings of a group which shares a collective set of values, andarticulate the process of moving a shared vision into material reality. I appreciate the concept because of its preservation of the possibility of individual subjectivity while honoring the power of the collective to effect change; these poles are held in productive tension within the concept of imaginaries. Some STS theorists feel strongly that the technology, the material process, engenders the imaginary, not vice versa . If this were the case, it would be through the act of digging and harvesting and creating fences that the gardener’s imaginary would be produced. Through the act of walking the pre-dawn streets, sifting through recycling bins, the scavenger’s imaginary would coalesce. I feel that the creation of the imaginary is more of a mutual process, where material and discursive processes co-produce imaginings; in this way I am closer to Jasanoff. Imaginaries encode collective visions of the good society and they “project visions of what is good, desirable, and worth attaining for a political community; they articulate feasible futures” . They are not simply master narratives, which are often extrapolated from past events and serve explanatory or justificatory purposes. Imaginaries create the future. These imaginaries map the world in ways similar to those described by Ramaswamy in The Land of Lemuria, in which she traces the history of the fabled island of Lemuria, a place thought by most to be akin to the sunken island of Atlantis. It has never been corroborated scientifically, yet it is taught as factual history in Tamil schools and firmly embedded in Tamil identity as their flooded homeland.Lemuria’s shape morphs dramatically as its place-makers work to map a vanished space. Similarly, each of the groups I worked with imagine their own world into existence, based on their identities and needs, which are often at odds with the worlds constructed by others who may share their space yet inhabit an entirely different lived experience. Some are already mourning lost spaces, while others are busily unleashing their imaginings on the spaces around them. These worlds layer over one another and rub itchily at their points of contention. Ramaswamy can be grouped with other scholars of what I will call imaginings of destruction. In these ranks we can include Joe Masco, who explores nuclear imaginings demanding new forms of governmentality to deal with altered interactions between nature, nuclear waste, and people in New Mexico. Another scholar who tracks the aftermath of destruction and its effects on the imagination in Japan is Lisa Yoneyama in Hiroshima Traces. This work examines how struggles over memory and history are expressed materially in the cityscape through processes of urban renewal and how the manufacture of space attempts to produce only subjectivities which emphasize societal stability . My work fits into this line of material imaginings of destruction because the blight-inflected conversations I document include the ultimate threat of eminent domain: gardens are frequently bulldozed in the name of development and murals disappear under a coatof gray paint overnight.Spatiality emphasizes the production of space, its discursive and material practices, and its related cultural understandings . A focus on spatiality is rooted in a belief that changing one’s material surroundings can change the way a person thinks or acts – a surprising common denominator for many of the actors in my research, who may disagree wildly on almost any other subject. The devil is in the details: how and when and in what ways? Space provides an essential lens in thinking about race and class in an urban context because histories of racism, exclusion, and limitations of mobility result in tell-tale patterns on the landscape. As Laura Pulido notes, “An appreciation of spatiality . . . encourages greater attention to race, as it is one of the key social forces shaping our cities ” . These marked spaces are more than just a backdrop to the lives of the people I worked and talked with and observed; these spaces are active players in and of themselves. Cultural geography has been criticized for a focus on “dematerialized and desocialized geographies” . Space as an analytical tool must be grounded in theories of power and how it manifests materially as well as in discourse. In my work I focus on transformations of space but attempt to temper its abstractions with a blend of materiality and imagination. Imagination provides the specificity, the heart, the motivations, the detail necessary to understand motivation.

The recommendation of 400–600 mg/d for flavan-3-ols to improve cardiometabolic health is based on beneficial effects observed across a range of disease biomarkers and endpoints. This recommendation is higher than the recent health claim of 200 mg/d for cocoa-flavanols by EFSA . The main reason for this discrepancy is that the EFSA health claim is only based on vasodilation as an endpoint and no other cardiometabolic disease markers. Regarding upper intake limits for flavan-3-ols, risk assessments of green tea catechins by EFSA concluded that no adverse effects are expected for intakes <800 mg/d . It must be acknowledged that challenges were encountered in establishing this guideline, such as limitations from lack of homogeneity in protocols. For example, studies included in the Raman et al. systematic review/meta-analysis reported large discrepancies in quality as well as lack of consensus in population description, duration of supplementation, form of bioactive/food/extract, and statistical methods . Implementing methodological consensus in executing and describing randomized clinical trials would allow for more rigorous assessment of study findings for comparison and pooling of data. Other limitations include the following: inclusion of more men than women in randomized clinical trials, different biomarkers used to assess prevention and development of cardiometabolic disease, and heterogeneity in dosages examined along with metabolism and assessment of circulating concentrations, which was not routinely evaluated. Additionally, it should be noted that cohort studies often relied on self-reported dietary intake, often at one time point, to assess benefit, which could contribute to information bias compromising internal validity; furthermore, package of blueberries the estimates of flavan-3-ol exposure were calculated from different food composition databases, which could preclude precise comparability.

Although FFQ data can clearly differentiate between extremes of intake, this assessment method does not account for the extensive inter individual metabolism that these compounds undergo after ingestion, which could impact effectiveness. As such, future studies should integrate biomarker, genetic, and dietary assessment methods to assess the effect of flavan-3-ols and their metabolites on cardiometabolic health. Considering a lack of homogeneity among studies, several research considerations would improve the generalizability of results from randomized clinical trials. For example, dose-dependent trials are warranted to assess minimal and maximal dose effects along with identifying potential negative effects from higher doses. Additional repository databases should be developed not only to report studies, but also to archive raw data and results to allow future ancillary analyses. This would allow for comparison and merging of results, thus increasing the total sample size, thereby increasing statistical power. Further, standardization in biomarkers of intake and exposure to flavan-3-ols is warranted. For example, γ -valerolactones, a flavan-3-ol metabolite formed by the colonic microbiome, can be used as markers of chronic flavan-3-ol intake . Future research should also include more diverse populations to assess inter individual variability for optimizing dietary recommendations and food product development, especially for specific population subgroups. Further, although this guideline was developed from research on the general adult population, additional research evaluating flavan-3-ol intake earlier in the lifespan is warranted because dietary habits adopted earlier in life can contribute to the magnitude of effect of flavan-3-ols on cardiometabolic health. In conclusion, when quality evidence is available to make an evidence-based intake guideline, such a recommendation can inform multiple stakeholders including clinicians, policymakers, public health entities, and consumers.

Evidence gaps identified in the review process can inform scientists, thereby guiding future randomized clinical trials. In summary, upon review of data from human studies reporting effects of foods rich in flavon-3-ols, the Expert Panel found moderate evidence supporting cardiometabolic protection resulting from flavan-3-ol intake in the range of 400–600 mg/d. It should be noted that the beneficial effects were observed across a range of disease biomarkers and endpoints; furthermore, this is a food-based guideline and not a recommendation for flavan-3-ol supplements.Horticulture likely originated 20,000years ago. There are over 100 species of horticultural crops, consisting of diverse fruits, vegetables, and tubers, many of which are of high economic value with enormous production volume worldwide. The amounts of fruits, vegetables, and tubers produced in 2018 were 868, 1089, and 832 million tons respectively , and the increased demand from a growing, and affluent global population, is predicted to drive further expansion of horticultural output . Horticultural crops not only provide basic calories , but also, are among the most crucial sources of fiber, organic acids, micro- and macro minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants in human diets. Healthy attributes, and a wide range of tastes, textures, and flavors make horticultural crops attractive. Starch is critical to human society given its versatile uses. Starch is the dominant energy source in the human diet, providing over 50% of our daily caloric needs. In the food industry, starch is widely used as a thickener, stabilizer, lipid replacer, defoaming agent, gelling agent, emulsifier, and dietary fiber, and in the pharmaceutical industry, starch is used as an excipient for drug delivery. In addition to these diverse uses, starch is an excellent renewable material for making ethanol biofuels and degradable ‘bioplastic’ products. Starch is almost ubiquitous in higher plants, including horticultural crops, in ways that may or may not be noticed.

For instance, potato, sweet potato, yam, and cassava are starchy, but spinach, lettuce, and ripe tomatoes, berries, and citrus are not, yet starch is likely to be important to the growth, development and fitness of all of these crops, as they are in better studied models. The widely accepted view is that starch accumulates either in a transitory state, or for long-term storage starch. Transitory starch follows a diurnal pattern: it is synthesized and accumulated directly from the products of photosynthesis in the leaf and in the stem during the daytime, and is then degraded into sugars as an energy source for the following night. In comparison, storage starch is defined as that located in perennating organs such as seeds, grain, embryos and tubers, where it provides sustenance for the next generation during germination and sprouting in sexual and asexual propagated crops, respectively. A third class of starch: ‘transitory-storage starch’ has been proposed. It describes starch that is accumulated and degraded during development in the storage organ. Transitory-storage starch is a feature of many species including horticultural crops of economic value such as tomato, banana, kiwi, strawberry, nectarine, and apple fruit. Starch accumulates as semi-crystalline, water insoluble granules that vary in diameter from 1 to 100μm depending on species. Starch is organized into two glucan polymers: amylose and amylopectin. Amylose and amylopectin consist primarily of linear chains of glucoses joined by α-1,4-glycosidic bonds. In amylopectin, the α-1,4-glucan chains are branched more frequently through α-1,6-glycosidic bonds, compared to amylose. The branching of the amylopectin chains is such that chains of different lengths are produced: short, medium and long chains, and the frequency with which each fraction occurs influences starch functionality. Side chains of amylopectin form clusters around branching points, and two adjacent chains make up a double helix. These physical features of amylopectin polymers leads to a semi-crystalline granule; amylose with a randomly coiled conformation, fills the matrices within the granule. Amylopectin and amylose account for around 25 and 75% of the starch in major heterotrophic storage organs, respectively , while the starch in leaf tissues is approximately 5 – 10% amylose. The core starch biosynthetic enzymes include ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylases , starch synthases , starch branching enzymes , and de-branching enzymes , of which there are many isoforms. In brief, AGPases initiate the first step of starch biosynthesis by catalyzing the formation of ADP-glucose. SSs elongate the glucan chains in amylose and amylopectin; SBEs branch the glucan chains, while the DBEs shorten and modify the starch chains which enable a higher-order semicrystalline structure to form. SBEs, the focus of this review, hydrolyze α-1,4-linked glucan chains, square plant pots and attach the newly-created ‘free’ chain to another glucan chain within the starch granule, via an α-1,6-linkage. Through this action, SBEs largely determine the proportion of the relatively unbranched amylose to the highly-branched amylopectin. Two major classes of SBEs are biofunctionally known: SBE1 and SBE2 , and they vary in terms of their substrate selectivity , whereas the function of SBE3 awaits verification across a broader set of species. SBE1 preferentially branches ‘amylose-like’ long glucan chains as the substrate, while SBE2 prefers a more branched substrate. The action of both forms further increases the number of branch points in starch polymers.

SBEs are the key players in the regulation of the amylose-to-amylopectin proportion in plants. However, their functions in many harvested horticultural crops have been under-investigated, although evidence points to the importance of starch in determining the postharvest quality of these crops. We aimed to develop a better understanding of the role of SBEs in fruits, tubers, and leafy greens in physiological processes by exploring SBE sequence relationships, expression, and starch phenotypes in diverse crops.SBEs have three classes of isozymes including two functional SBE classes and one putative class 3 SBE . SBE1 isoforms appeared earlier than SBE2 and SBE3 in the viridiplantae, but plant SBE1 and SBE2 are more homologous to each other, than to SBE3. SBEs have been identified and relatively well-characterized in cereal crops, tubers, and Arabidopsis thaliana over the last two decades,but, as mentioned, little attention has been paid to the diverse group of species that are classified as horticultural crops. Within each class of SBE, the cereals grouped together, while most non-cereals formed another cluster . This pattern is due to the divergence of monocots from dicots around 200 million years ago . In contrast to the presence of ‘a’ and ‘b’ sub-isoforms of SBE2 in cereal crops, horticultural plant species generally have one SBE2 isoform. It was also observed that not all species have a known or predicted class 3 isoform. The SBE sequences contained within diverse organs, i.e., fruits, tubers, roots, and leafy vegetables , clustered together based on their respective plant families. The class 1 SBE is absent in Arabidopsis thaliana, and so it was not surprising that this SBE class is not present in the Brassicaceae. However, the class 1 SBE is also absent in apple , and European olive , but these species all have two class 2 SBE isoforms . In addition, banana contains at least four types of SBE2, and transcripts corresponding to these SBE2s have been identified, indicating that they are expressed.Starch Branching Enzymes belong to the α-amylase family of enzymes, specifically the glycoside hydrolase family 13 superfamily, with multiple isoforms encoded by different genes . The overall structure of the SBE polypeptide is highly conserved: all SBEs possess a central α-amylase catalytic domain , and an NH2- terminus, and a carboxyl- terminus. The SBE NH2-terminus contains two conserved domains: a chloroplast transit peptide for plastid-targeting, and a CBM48 domain for binding to starch. The C-terminus contains the residues that determine substrate preference and catalytic activity. The central region of the enzyme contains the “A” catalytic domain, that is made up of 8–barrels. Notably, the class 3 SBE may not directly participate in starch biosynthesis in Arabidopsis, but it has a demonstrated function in mediating cesium toxicity of photosynthesis. However, the role of SBE3 is unlikely to be conserved. In potato, StSBE3 has a unique coiled-coil motif which is absent in the AtSBE3 polypeptide . Notably, the CBM48 domain is also deficient in AtSBE3 . It is possible that the StSBE3 may interact and complex with other starch biosynthetic enzymes through its coiled-coil domain, in a similar way to the SS4-PTST2 interaction in Arabidopsis, the GBSS-PTST1 interaction in rice or the SBEcontaining protein complexes in cereal endosperm, rendering an assistant function in starch biosynthesis. This species-specific mode of action of SBE3 may reveal a novel function of SBEs generally. Indeed, although all SBEs are predicted to form complexes with starch phosphorylases , the starch synthases and isoamylase , interactions with other proteins show differences depending on the species and SBE isoform.Four conserved regions critical for catalysis, named Regions 1-4 , are found within the catalytic A-domain . Regions 1-3 are directly involved in catalysis, while Region 4 is involved in direct substrate binding. SBE1 and 2 have largely invariant residues, but the residues in the SBE3 isoform of many species have substitutions at these sites. Post-transcriptional phosphorylation of the SBE-protein complexes formed with other starch biosynthetic enzymes has been found in cereal crops and in cassava, while experimental evidence of this regulation in the majority of horticultural crops is absent. SBE1 and SBE3 have fewer possible phosphorylation amino acid sites than SBE2 . Overall, the distinctive domain features of the SBE3 predicted protein, and the implifications for functionality may complicate current views of SBE function, but these features may also provide an opportunity to deepen our mechanistic understanding of starch biosynthesis and regulation.

One option is to exhaust other methods of gathering data before utilizing the homegrown crowd. For example, the database can import data from relevant plant databases that support the distribution of their data . Another example is to utilize a crowd that does not consist of community members from Mechanical Turk, for example, to crawl community-referenced websites and texts for data. Off-loading the work of the homegrown crowd onto import scripts and non-affiliated crowds allows the homegrown crowd to focus on seeding the plant database with folk knowledge from within their community. The crowd’s collective intelligence should be used to address the challenge of seeding the database with folk knowledge by framing the challenge as a cooperation problem rather than a collection of cognitive problems. Framing database seeding as a cooperation problem requires individuals in the crowd to factor in what other people are doing to make decisions that have mutual advantage. The technology steward can facilitate seeding the plant database with datasets that crowd members may already have. After importing their personal lists, crowd members can choose to add data that benefit themselves and their peers. For example, if the database has a lot of entries for nitrogenfixing plants but few on plants that attracted pollinators, it would be mutually beneficial for the member and the crowd if the member adds data for pollinators rather than nitrogen-fixing plants. Similarly, tomato grow bags crowd members can choose to recruit others for their local plant knowledge that is not already represented in the database . Solutions to cooperation problems often require trust and are often built upon cultural norms and conventions to regulate behavior .

Members of the crowd will have to trust each other to put in data that they believe is of good quality. Adding data of poor quality, including data that does not reflect the community’s cultural norms and values, is mutually detrimental to the person who added the information and to the rest of the crowd because both in-turn use that information to make decisions in their sustainable polyculture designs. The crowd’s collective decisions on individual data points is likely more appropriate for addressing issues of quality control than to seed the entire database. If a datum is under disagreement from a small subset of the crowd , it should be flagged as a point of conflict. A query for this datum should then be dispatched to a well-formed subset of the crowd so that their collective wisdom can be used to gauge which is the correct answer. Search-misses should be addressed by both individual or collective decisions. A search-miss occurs when a user searches the database for a plant or property that the database does not have. The user could then opt to enter the datum, thus creating an individual decision. By entering their own data, some users will join the crowd for their first time, thus growing the size of the crowd. If many misses occur for a specific search criterion, the system could dispatch queries to the crowd for that plant or property. The crowd will collectively decide on a value for this datum, increasing its likelihood of being correct. A dispatching system should not query the crowd for all data points that are search-misses because the crowd could become overwhelmed with requests while the database is sparsely populated. For both users and crowd members, the lack of data in the database during its infancy increases the possibility of fragile engagement. Due to the potential for fragile engagement, the order in which to tool is introduced to various parts of the information ecology may be crucial.CalFlora lists each plant’s associated beneficial organisms, such as bees and butterflies.

CalFlora has some data about plant tolerances, primarily in regard to soil characteristics, temperature, and rain. However, the database provides no ethnobotanical data, such as whether it is food producing. The lack of ethnobotanical information requires users to search other information resources to determine if a plant will provide them with products or services. CalFlora’s advanced search allows a user to search and filter the data based on most available plant data points, making it easy to search for California wild plants in a specific county and microclimate. CalFlora’s data cannot be exported. However, search results, containing taxonomic rank, common name, status, life form, and family, and plant information pages are formatted as text and can be copied and pasted into a spreadsheet, though this process would be long and tedious for collecting large amounts of information. The primary limitation of the CalFlora database is the lack of form, ethnobotanical, and ecosystem service data needed to include California Wild plants in an agroecosystem design. In contrast, the SAGE Plant Database is designed to provide ethnobotanical and ecosystem service data of California wild plants. This is important in agroecosystems because wild plants can be used as alternatives to traditional agriculturally productive plants in effort to cater to the animals and insects that depend on native flora for habitat and food. SAGE is also designed to include form data useful in assessing spatial constraints and opportunities of an agroecosystem design. For example, a user might search plants that create an overstory vertical layer, but without form data they cannot determine which trees would make a good overstory. In addition, while CalFLora has growing condition data limited to wild, unmanaged, or native ecological context, the SAGE Plant Database is designed to include growing condition data beyond CalFlora’s tolerance and soil data so that users can understand how to care for California wild plants in maintained, mixed agricultural landscape.

The data found in USDA PLANTS is sourced from an extensive network of federal partners and institutions and is curated by the small National Resource Conservation Service National Plants Data Team. It is an expert resource because the data is derived or validated through research efforts. USDA PLANTS has an extensive list of plant attributes it catalogs including distribution, taxonomy, ecology, legal status, morphology/physiology, growth requirements, reproduction, and suitability/use data. The database can be searched by over 120 attributes. All search results can be exported to a comma separated value file. Although there are nearly 50,000 plants in the PLANTS database, only about 2,000 plants, all of which are plants used in conservation efforts, have defined “characteristics data,” mostly consisting of intrinsic characteristics but also including some tolerances, products, and services . A search for most agricultural plants, like fruit trees, will have hardly any data available. For example, the PLANTS database only returns 28 plants that grow in in the county the Manzanita community is located in that are palatable to humans, not because there are only 28 palatable plants that grow in that county, but because those are the only plants that have “human palatable” data. The primary limitation of the USDA PLANTS Database is the incompleteness of the data set. The USDA PLANTS Database is only populated by staff and partners, and not by average users. Their data population method ensures level of quality control that crowd sourced data could not. However, for the permaculture communities, such a level of quality control is not essential because they are engaging with small-scale systems with lower financial risk than industrial agriculture or regional conservation efforts. The SAGEPlant Database design attempts to address incompleteness by enabling and encouraging users to contribute data that is absent. The USDA PLANTS Database does not catalog region-specific growing requirements, which participants use in both their design and maintenance of permaculture systems. The SAGE Plant Database design includes region specific growing requirements and does so because members of the local community are able to contribute their personal experiences to the data set.The EDIS publication database has over 7,000 peer reviewed publications produced by the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences. The publications cover a range of topics including, adjacent to, and beyond plants, such as agriculture, community development, ecosystem restoration, grow bags garden consumer information, lawn and garden care, and sustainability. Many articles are about a single species of plant, where as other articles are about a broader topic and provide only a little bit of information about a plant. Single plant publications within this database have the most similar format to the information stored of a plant in a plant database. For example, a publication about white mulberry has a synthesis followed by an attribute list of properties and values and a list of references .

Attribute properties for the white mulberry include taxonomic and distribution information, form characteristics, growing conditions, use and management summary, pests, and diseases. This list of attributes is not exactly the same for each single-plant publication but is representative of the kinds of data found in those publications. The primary way to find information relevant to permaculture design or practices is to use the basic search function. Users can search for any keywords of their choosing from the publications, such as the scientific or common name of a plant, insect, or animal, or land feature . Users can browse articles by topic such as agriculture, community development, environment, or lawn and garden. To browse plants and plant information, a user must look in many places, which can make it hard to find data. For example, the Environment root topic has Plants subtopic, the Agriculture root topic has a Crops subtopic, and the Lawn and Garden root topic has a Landscape Plants subtopic. Although the EDIS publication database is a rich information resource, its primary limitation is the difficulty that a user has in finding the information they are looking for. For example, the EDIS does not hyperlink key terms or concepts across publications.When there is a plant or concept discussed in one publication that is expanded upon in another, it is up to the user to connect the information between the two. Second, because much of the data is written in a manuscript format, the user must spend time reading large chunks of text to locate the information they need or to determine that the information is not present. In contrast, with the plant information in a database format, like SAGE, users can quickly locate and sort through plant data and information.The 127 plant profiles are similar in content to the information found in a plant database. These profiles are brief, typically only single paragraphs, but include information about the plants form, their ideal growing conditions, companion plants, and ecosystem services. Sometimes, these profiles also include information about how the Native Americans used the plant. The ToLN plant information, and particularly the plant profiles, provide visitors with a succinct set of native plant information. However, because the information is limited to native plants, users are unable to explore native plant relationships with nonnative but agriculturally productive plants – a technique often used in permaculture. In contrast, the SAGE Plant Database supports this sort of exploration by featuring a range of non-native plants that are valued for their ecosystem services or human uses in addition to native plants. The ToLN plant information has similar limitations to those of the EDIS publication database in the sense that the data or information contained within those documents are not cross-referenced. Finally, the ToLN plant profiles omit pertinent details regarding the plants growing conditions, uses, or form in attempt to be brief. By filtering for specific properties, the SAGE database can provide data as brief or as extensive as the user requires.The Natural Capital Plant Database is a plant database designed specifically to support practitioners engaging in permaculture projects. Staff and registered contributors provide the data through referencing scholarly resources. The plant attribute data are similar to that of SAGE, including category, characteristics, tolerances, behaviors, human uses, and ecological functions. The Natural Capital Plant Database also lists which user polycultures a plant is a part of, associates of a plant , and compatibilities and incompatibilities with other plants. The Natural Capital Plant Database has four membership tiers, including free and paid. The Annual paid membership allows users to search the plant by site conditions, ecological functions, human uses, and limiting factors. Designer memberships are more expensive and allow users to do customized searches of the database based on their site conditions and download comma separate value reports. Researcher membership are designer memberships with the additional allow users to supply new plant data.

A small subset of participants in the Live Oak community met on a weekly or biweekly basis and plant seeds and young plants in typically fallow areas on both private and public property. Although this was an illegal act, the guerilla gardeners believed that leaving the land fallow was more problematic then trespassing or hijacking the space for their own social agenda. The guerilla gardeners gathered just after sunset, each bringing seeds or plants from their personal store and basic hand tools. They typically rode bikes to their target locations and wore dark clothing in effort to be inconspicuous. When I asked the guerilla gardeners how they anticipated the plants would grow and the food would get harvested, they explained that a successful harvest was secondary to making a social statement. Many of the plants would not grow well enough to produce a bountiful harvest because the plants are unmanaged -they do not have consistent irrigation, only rainfall, nor are growing in properly amended soil. Also, some of the sites were fenced, and most citizens are unlikely to trespass beyond a fence for fruits and vegetables of questionable origin. Instead, it was their goal that someone would notice that food was growing in once vacant, fallow space, that the local society would learn that food could grow in unusual places in an urban and suburban environment, and that the local government would notice that its citizens want more local, sustainable food production. However, when collective action creates a noticeable effect, government and industry retaliates and explicit resistance is born .Unlike the acts of quotidian insubordination, plastic garden container appeals for institutional change were not anonymous and were meant to be noticed. For example, the Live Oak sustainable agriculture community appealed to the local government regarding the right to grow food in front yards.

This began when a gardener in Live Oak was cited by the city for not having appropriate ground cover in his front yard as instead of grass, he had a garden . This and similar events motivated individuals to lobby for new and changed city ordinances, run for local office, or run for their HOA board in order to change the institutions they were living within. On several fronts, the Live Oak sustainable agriculture community was successful. For example, in the last five years several counties in Live Oak have started programs to help people raise chickens in their suburban back yards . I witnessed similar forms of striving for institutional change by the Manzanita community. One participant petitioned against the use of pesticides on school grounds from her children’s district to the state . As more community members began installing gardens in their children’s schools, the movement to ban pesticides on school grounds became a community effort. Although the group’s effort was unsuccessful, the community’s awareness surrounding the issue has increased.Participants used ITs in their practice to address problems of sustainability, particularly in the context of agriculture. Participants depended upon ITs in three contexts: design of infrastructure, coordinating design projects and community events, and independent learning. Participants used ITs during the permaculture design process. They used online plant databases for determining the flora components of a design. Some participants used 2D and 3D drawing software to refine their designs. Participants also used word processors and spreadsheet applications for office and business management. Participants found that ITs improved their work by helping them accomplish tasks faster, more accurately, and at lower cost.

One student in the Manzanita PDC explained how he was able to reduce the time needed to accomplish a task using IT: “We are able to get a great understanding of weather over a year without observing for that long.”Another explained how ITs provided them with data essential to the design process:“Satellite images provide accurate top-down perspectives of the site and surrounding area that we wouldn’t otherwise have.” Participants used email, phone, text messaging, and instant messaging to coordinate with others. One participant used Survey Monkey to distribute client needs surveys. Several participants used Doodle polls and chat features in Google Docs to coordinate with peers or clients. Participants used Facebook, Meetup, and email to coordinate and share information at the community level. The Live Oak community had a periodic email newsletter and website for announcements and shared event information. Although participants used ITs to address challenges of sustainability, they had two philosophical misgivings in doing so: negative environmental impacts of IT manufacture, use, and disposal; and distraction from physical human and environment interaction. These misgivings are not, however, unique to these permaculture communities. ITs are known by HCI researchers to be implicated in the problems of sustainability and social isolation . In accordance with the extended values of the permaculture movement, participants preferred utilizing renewable and local resources to non-renewable or distant resources . However, non-renewable resources, often from distant places, make up and power IT. This misgiving can explain some of the intentional non-use of ITs that I observed. Some participants utilized and repaired old laptops and mobile devices with the intent of keeping the technology until it stopped working. Others focused on reducing operational energy from non-renewable resources. For example, one participant kept his phone powered off until he needed to make a phone call or was ready to check for messages. Many other participants in the Live Oak community owned small solar cells that they used to charge their small electronic devices, such as cell phones.

The second misgiving arises from the neglect of social interaction with people and other living things in the physical environment when using ITs. The extended values of the permaculture movement call for a “culture of place” that connects people to each other, the land, and nature . Participants believed that face-to-face social interaction is more effective for forming community than IT-mediated interaction because ITs pull attention away from the physical environment including people and nature. Thus, participants engaged in selective use of technology, a form of technological non-use as described by Baumer et al. . Participants believed that reducing or eliminating their use of ITs for a period of time allowed them to value social connections.The issues addressed by these communities – climate change, resource scarcity, societal limitations, and food security – are considered multi-lifespan problems. When exploring how to address these multi-lifespan problems, the community demonstrated three values: food sovereignty, regenerative design, and sociocultural equality. Food sovereignty for this community may be better described as critical resource sovereignty because the objective of permaculture is to obtain and managing all critical resources, also including energy and water, for sustainable human settlements . Altieri’s explanation of food sovereignty reflects the nature of these communities’ values of food sovereignty – food sovereignty emphasizes “farmers’ access to land, seeds, and water while focusing on local autonomy, local markets, local production-consumption cycles, energy and technological sovereignty, and farmer-to-farmer networks” . With long-term personal water collection and recycling features, and solar energy utilization, plastic pot both by strategically taking advantage of the sun’s path and by using solar cells, participants aim to achieve long-term local, and even personal, autonomy of critical resources. Specifically, the communities’ long-term food sovereignty values encourage the formation of an agrarian society in place of the industrial society we have now.Regeneration denotes breakdown, evolution, and growing anew. On the surface, regeneration could counter the “permanent” in permaculture. However, participants did not value permanence in the sense of unchanging. For participants, permanence required the ability for something to change with and adapt to slow, multi-lifetime changes and problems, such as climate change and resource scarcity. Participants applied the value of regeneration to the community itself – evolving its goals and values to global and local changes and fostering the arrival of newcomers and the passing of old-timers. They also applied the value of regeneration to renewable and non-renewable resources – facilitating the regeneration of natural resources, like using earthworks to sink rain and irrigation water into the ground, and chemical exchanges, like amending soil with biochar for carbon sequestration. Furthermore, they applied the value of regeneration to infrastructure – creating agricultural systems that function as ecosystems, like sustainable polycultures, and using waste to create energy, like breaking down organic material in bio-digesters to create biogas. Finally, participants applied the value of regeneration to technology, indicating an interest in hardware components and power sources that could grow and decompose. Socio-cultural equality, as described by these communities, entails a society of people who have equal opportunity to participate in the formation and possession of sociocultural capital, knowledge, critical resources, infrastructure, and traditions.

Achieving equality is contingent upon socio-cultural equity, which entails providing all people with the resources they need to be successful. Broadly, participants view the current industrial society as one that fosters inequality and disenfranchisement. They envision a future sustainable agrarian society that disaggregates and disperses wealth and provides people with the opportunity to have direct engagement with their community and its economy. They believe long-term collective action can transition their communities from the current industrial society to a future sustainable agrarian society. Although most participants shared these long-term values, they disagreed on the likelihood of future societies representing these values. One participant described these ideals as “probably unrealistic” and “utopian in nature,” but never-the-less longed for food sovereignty, regeneration, and equality in society. Another participant challenged that assessment, pointing out that most of the participants had already agreed that some sort of collapse was likely to occur. If society collapses in thirty years, he posited, in every moment up to and through that point, they should be laying the foundation for a more just and sustainable society. In summary, community members shared long-term values but envisioned the future in which they would be practiced and the effect they would have differently.The emergent resistance, technology, and long-term values, though not explicit in permaculture literature or instruction, are influenced by the core and extended permaculture values. Growing food, fighting for rights to grow food, guerilla gardening of vacant spaces, and designing long-term solutions in the form of sustainable polycultures for clients and the community are all motivated by the permaculture value to “look after self, kin, and community.” The permaculture value of “rebuilding natural capital” – where natural capital denotes the worlds natural assets such as air, water, geology, soil, and all living things – and “set limits to consumption and redistribute surplus” motivates how participants engage in these activities. For example, in contrast to common annual gardens that quickly degrade soil and utilize chemical fertilizers and pesticides, participants’ annual gardens incorporated bio-intensive methods, such as deep soil preparation, the use of compost, close plant spacing, and synergistic combinations of plants, with the goal to encourage long-term soil health, reduce resource consumption, and preserve genetic diversity. As an example, the guerilla gardeners’ spare seeds and plants were “redistributed” to the community and other living species for food and habitat. Given the extent to which participants mindfully incorporated the permaculture values into the ways they engage with the world, it is important that the information systems that are designed for them support this intentionality. Very often, designers build information systems that uphold their own self- or organization-serving values and goals, such as popularity by way of mass production of short-lifespan products , profit by way of aggregating value from free labor , innovation by way of Earth’s natural resources , or social change by way of mass adoption . Sometimes those self-serving values are in conflict with stake holders’ values, and so stakeholder values are set aside. Sometimes technology evangelists create a system that has inherent designer-serving values and then persuade a critical mass of people into adopting that the system, thus implicating them in supporting the designers self-serving values or goals even if potentially at a cost to themselves . Many permaculture participants abandoned technologies that were implicated in a social or environmental issue, such as certain brands of smartphones, laptops, and other devices that have rechargeable lithium ion batteries containing coltan and the ecological and human security impacts mining that coltan has had on the Congo . Since participants were willing to forgo ubiquitous technologies or technological services because they were in conflict with their values, it is imperative that technologies designed for these communities are in support of, and certainly not in conflict with, their values.