Agricultural chemicals--For better or worse

Spraying herbicides changes the flavour and nutritional value of crops

 

Gardeners know only too well how hard it is to keep on top of weeds , because hoeing and pulling them out is backbreaking work. With big fields to look after, most farmers turn to herbicides. Over the years these chemicals have become better at knocking out weeds but leaving commercial crops alone. Organic farmers do not use artificial herbicides, and can suffer lower yields as a result. Which system produces the “better” crop is open to debate, although it is known that crops sprayed with herbicides are biochemically transformed in subtle ways. New work shows those changes in treated crops are substantial enough to change both their nutritional value and flavour.

 

The investigation was led by Matthew Cutulle, a horticulturalist at Clemson University in South Carolina, in collaboration with Greg Armel at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and their colleagues. They ran an extensive series of trials on large fields growing sweetcorn, a widely eaten vegetable.

 

The team worked with the four commonly used herbicides: mesotrione, topramezone, nicosulfuron and atrazine. These are often used in combination with safeners, which are chemicals that selectively help protect crops from herbicide damage. Hence a safener called isoxadifen-ethyl was also included in the experiment, sometimes pairing it with the herbicides and sometimes allowing the herbicides to work on their own.

 

The researchers planted sweetcorn in several plots split between two different locations. When the plants were between five and ten centimetres in height, they ex- posed each plot to one of seven different herbicide/safener combinations. As a control, one field was treated with atrazine be- fore the corn was planted (a full control using no herbicides at all would have been destroyed by weeds without an over- whelming amount of hand weeding). After 45 days the sweetcorn was gathered. The mature kernels were analysed for levels of antioxidants, sugars, amino acids, proteins, fatty acids, minerals and fibre.

 

Sugary outcome

The results, just published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, revealed that applying herbicides increased the amount of protein that the plants stored in their kernels by as little as 4% and as much as 12% when nicosulfuron was combined with the safener. The amounts of mineral taken up by the plants increased as well, with levels of phosphorous, magnesium and manganese going up by between 14% and 51% and iron content rising by 67% in plants exposed to the nicosulfuron/safener combination. The balance of sugars found in the tissues of the sweetcorn changed as well. Fructose concentrations shot up by 48% upon exposure to nicosulfuron; 63% to topramezone and 68% to the nicosulfuron / safener combination. Glucose concentrations increased by 19% with mesotrione, 40% with topramezone and 43% with the nicosulfuron/safener combination. In contrast, sucrose levels in the corn dropped.

 

It remains unclear precisely how these changes affect the flavour of sweetcorn, al- though Dr. Cutulle thinks they are probably big enough to be noticeable. He suggests that further studies are carried out to look into the matter using panels of people carrying out tastings. Perhaps more importantly, the findings show that pesticides are capable of transforming crops in ways that shape their nutritional value. Some of these, like the iron-enhancing property of nicosulfuron combined with the safener, could help with iron deficiency in diets, which is responsible for a number of severe health conditions, such as anaemia.

 

Other factors, however, might not be so welcome. The fructose-enriching aspects of herbicides may make sweetcorn even sweeter, but that could be detrimental to health because fructose is increasingly being implicated in a number of illnesses, such as fatty-liver disease and diabetes. Working out how to grow the best crops has become a lot more complicated.

 

文章精读：

Agricultural chemicals--For better or worse

Spraying herbicides changes the flavour and nutritional value of crops

摘自The Economist March 3rd 2018

 

Gardeners know only too well how hard it is to keep on top of weeds , because hoeing and pulling them out is backbreaking work. With big fields to look after, most farmers turn to herbicides. Over the years these chemicals have become better at knocking out weeds but leaving commercial crops alone. Organic farmers do not use artificial herbicides , and can suffer lower yields as a result. Which system produces the “better” crop is open to debate, although it is known that crops sprayed with herbicides are biochemically transformed in subtle ways. New work shows those changes in treated crops aresubstantial enough to change both their nutritional value and flavour.

 

The investigation was led by Matthew Cutulle, a horticulturalist at Clemson University in South Carolina, in collaboration with Greg Armel at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and their colleagues. They ran an extensive series of trials on large fields growing sweetcorn, a widely eaten vegetable.

 

The team worked with the four commonly used herbicides: mesotrione, topramezone, nicosulfuron and atrazine. These are often used in combination with safeners, which are chemicals that selectively help protect crops from herbicide damage. Hence a safener called isoxadifen-ethyl was also included in the experiment, sometimes pairing it with the herbicides and sometimes allowing the herbicides to work on their own.

 

The researchers planted sweetcorn in several plots split between two different locations. When the plants were between five and ten centimetres in height, they exposed each plot to one of seven different herbicide/safener combinations. As a control, one field was treated with atrazine before the corn was planted (a full control using no herbicides at all would have been destroyed by weeds without an over- whelming amount of hand weeding). After 45 days the sweetcorn was gathered. The mature kernels were analysed for levels of antioxidants, sugars, amino acids, proteins, fatty acids, minerals and fibre.

 

Sugary outcome

The results, just published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, revealed that applying herbicides increased the amount of protein that the plants stored in their kernels by as little as 4% and as much as 12% when nicosulfuron was combined with the safener. The amounts of mineral taken up by the plants increased as well, with levels of phosphorous, magnesium and manganese going up by between 14% and 51% and iron content rising by 67% in plants exposed to the nicosulfuron/safener combination. The balance of sugars found in the tissues of the sweetcorn changed as well. Fructose concentrations shot up by 48% upon exposure to nicosulfuron; 63% to topramezone and 68% to the nicosulfuron / safener combination. Glucose concentrations increased by 19% with mesotrione, 40% with topramezone and 43% with the nicosulfuron/safener combination. In contrast, sucrose levels in the corn dropped.

 

It remains unclear precisely how these changes affect the flavour of sweetcorn, although Dr. Cutulle thinks they are probably big enough to be noticeable. He suggests that further studies are carried out to look into the matter using panels of people carrying out tastings. Perhaps more importantly, the findings show that pesticides are capable of transforming crops in ways that shape their nutritional value. Some of these, like the iron-enhancing property of nicosulfuron combined with the safener, could help with irondeficiency in diets, which is responsible for a number of severe health conditions, such as anaemia.

 

Other factors, however, might not be so welcome. The fructose-enriching aspects of herbicides may make sweetcorn even sweeter, but that could be detrimental to health because fructose is increasingly being implicated in a number of illnesses, such as fatty-liver disease and diabetes. Working out how to grow the best crops has become a lot more complicated.

 

words and expressions

spray v.喷洒

keep on top of 保持优势，控制

backbreaking adj.非常辛劳的 (=tiring or arduous)

artificial herbicide 人工除草剂(bio-herbicide 生物除草剂)

yield n.产量

be open to debate 有待争论,有争议的（=debatable）

substantial adj.大量的,相当多的（=considerable）

split v.分裂，分歧

be in collaboration with 与…合作

be exposed to 暴露在

tissue n.组织

deficiency n.缺乏（=shortage）

be detrimental to 对…有害 (=be harmful/damaging to…)

be implicated in… 导致…的原因

 

essential sentences

l These (herbicides) are often used in combination with safeners, which are chemicals that selectively help protect crops from herbicide damage.

翻译：这些（除草剂）通常是结合安全剂一起使用，所谓安全剂就是会选择性地保护农作物免受除草剂伤害的化学物。

 

l The results, just published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, revealed that applying herbicides increased the amount of protein that the plants stored in their kernels by as little as 4% and as much as 12% when nicosulfuron was combined with the safener.

注：nicosulfuron 烟嘧磺隆(一种除草剂的名字)

刚刚发表在农业及食品化学杂志上的结果表明，当安全剂一起使用时，除草剂增加了存储在植物谷粒中蛋白质的量，增幅最少为4%，最多为12%

 

l Fructose concentrations shot up by 48% upon exposure to nicosulfuron; 63% to topramezone and 68% to the nicosulfuron / safener combination. Glucose concentrations increased by 19% with mesotrione, 40% with topramezone and 43% with the nicosulfuron/safener combination. In contrast, sucrose levels in the corn dropped.

翻译：一旦遇到烟嘧磺隆，果糖浓度就激增48%；而遇到苯吡唑草酮会提高63%,如果烟嘧磺隆与安全剂同时使用，则会飙升68%. 葡萄糖浓度在使用硝磺草酮时增加了19%，遇到烟嘧磺隆与安全剂结合使用时提高了43%。与之相反，玉米中的这蔗糖含量下降了。（雅思小作文说明文描述变化趋势图时可使用的句型）

 

l Perhaps more importantly, the findings show that pesticides are capable of transforming crops in ways that shape their nutritional value.

翻译：也许更为重要的是，这些发现表明农药会改变农作物从而影响这些作物的营养价值。

 

句型结构: 

perhaps more importantly, the findings show that… 

in ways that…以一种…方式

e.g. They also allow us to do things in ways that simply weren't possible before.

它们还允许我们用以前完全不可能的方法来处理事情。

 

本文作者简介：

王少娟

上海新航道雅思主讲，上海外国语大学教育技术学硕士。对综合英语的阅读教学有深入的研究，教授了数百名学生均取得了优异的英语成绩。讲解细致、逻辑清晰、课堂活跃，丰富的教学经验能帮助学生在学习中和练习中能够更有效的提高英语能力。

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