Help dad grow beautiful, delicious tomatoes like these. (Photo: Business Wire)

Start off Right

First, choose a good location with full sun, good drainage, and soil amended with natural composts. Good soils with adequate drainage head off root diseases or the stress of too much or too little water. Next choose healthy tomato plants -- dark green with thick stems, a strong root system, and absolutely no brown spots or wilted leaves. Look for varieties resistant to the main diseases and known to grow well in your area (a nursery or extension service can advise). Space tomato plants at least 18-24 inches apart in the row, with at least half of the transplant height buried. New roots will form on the part of the stem that is buried.

Grow It Bigger

Plan for size. These are dad's tomatoes, so do things to help grow really big ones. Keep the soil around the plant moist and rich with compost and mulch. Use stakes to keep leaves and fruit off the ground. Be sure to remove the suckers (small unproductive vegetative branches on main stems and at the base of the plant). Fertilize weekly with a liquid plant food. Remove any damaged or misshaped fruit. Apply Messenger(R) to direct more of the plant's energy into producing more and bigger fruit. Messenger contains a natural protein that also enhances a plant's own disease resistance systems. Apply Messenger every three weeks starting at bloom. This sets the stage for really huge tomatoes.

(1) Comments posted about this in the forum

Artist's rendering of Orbital's Hybrid Launch Vehicle (HLV) in flight (Photo: Business Wire).

Mr. Brian Winters, Orbital's HLV Program Manager, said, "The U.S. Air Force seeks a space launch architecture that combines the cost reductions and fast response time that a reusable design offers, while avoiding some of the penalties associated with a fully reusable system. We are using the X-34 research vehicle that Orbital designed and built for NASA in the late 1990's as a point of departure for this effort. As a result, the HLV effort is afforded a significant head start compared to starting the program from scratch."

Under the HLV Studies and Analysis contract, Orbital is evaluating alternative aerodynamic, propulsion and structural configurations, identifying potential development program risk and mitigation plans, and providing recommendations for technical risk reduction activities.

(4) Comments posted about this in the forum

Over half of all plant species in Europe are at serious risk because of climate change. This is the finding of an international team of scientists working on the ALARM project led by the Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig-Halle (UFZ). Preliminary findings have recently been presented in connection with the UN Conference on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil.

Ranunculus glacialis photo: Uwe Lochstampfer www.botanikus.de

The situation is expected to become particularly dramatic at middle to high altitudes in mountainous areas. The mountain flora there is very specialised and would therefore be less able to adapt. As well as the Alps and Pyrenees, this primarily affects large stretches around the Mediterranean and in Eastern Europe. The loss of species diversity would be less severe in Scandinavia and along the Atlantic. The scientists assessed the impact of various climate forecasts on 1350 European plant species. The climate forecasts assume an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to up to twice today’s values and a rise in the average temperature of up to 4 degrees by 2080.

ALARM is one of five research projects with a total budget of 60 million euros, which the EU delegation presented at a meeting of the Biodiversity Convention in mid March 2006. Dr. Josef Settele from the UFZ is a member of the delegation and in Curitiba he reported on the content and interim results of the ALARM research project which he coordinates. The project focuses in particular on four areas which are thought to play a role in the loss of biological diversity: climate change, the loss of pollinators like bees, bumblebees and butterflies, harmful substances present in the environment and the invasion of non-native animal and plant species. The scientists work in over 40 different research regions spread across the whole of Europe and South America. By the end of the project in 2009, the project initiators expect fundamental advances in knowledge – in particular because of the unparalleled scale and complexity of the investigations.

(1) Comments posted about this in the forum