Invisible Enemy
Rural Areas Vulnerable to Crop Damaging Ozone
WASHINGTON - Ozone and
other air pollutants are costing
farmers at least $1 billion in
agricultural crop losses each year,
according to U.S. Department of
Agriculture researchers.
“Farmers don’t see ozone
damage happening to their field
crops, but it is,” said Walter W.
Heck, a plant physiologist who
heads air pollution research at
Raleigh, N.C., for USDA’s
Agricultural Research Service, in
cooperation with the En
vironmental Protection Agency.
Damaging ozone is caused by a
photochemical reaction of sunlight
with automobile and industrial
exhausts containing nitrogen
oxides and hydrocarbons. It is
different from the ozone layer in
the earth’s stratosphere that filters
out ultraviolet sunlight but does
not harm crops.
“Ozone is carried by prevailing
winds, often for hundreds or
thousands of miles,” Heck said.
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“That’s why rural areas, despite
having fewer automobiles and
industrial plants, often equal the
ozone polllution levels for urban
areas.”
As a result, he said, crops far
away from pollution sources are
not necessarily safe from ozone.
“We see in field test chambers
and in greenhouses that ozone is
causing leaves of soybean, wheat,
cotton, peanut and other
agricultural crops to die
prematurely, reducing yields and
costing the.farmer money,” he
said. “And the $1 billion figure
doesn’t include damage to hor
ticultural crops and to forests. ’ ’
Yield losses are based on crop
studies done at sites across the
country from 1980-82. Findings
from 1983-85 are being compiled
and analyzed, Heck said, and final
results are expected in 1987.
Hecks’s laboratory has been
studying the problem since 1980 as
part of the National Crop Loss
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Assessment Network, set up by
EPA to get estimates of
agricultural crop losses from
ozone and other air pollutants.
A typical long-term con
centration, or level, of surface
ozone is .05 parts per million. Beck
said. In test areas, ozone levels
varied from about .04 to .06 parts
per million during a seven-hour
day, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Over a
growing season from April to
September, he said, ozone levels
fluctuated but averaged about .05
ppm.
That level can significantly
damage crops when plants absorb
it over an entire growing season,
he said. Among the yield losses
assessed to date in the NCLAN
studies:
* Soybean yields also decreased
12 percent when exposed to .05 ppm
of ozone in 1980-82 field tests at
Argonne, HI., Beltsville, Md.,
Ithaca, N.Y., and Raleigh.
• Winter wheat yields at
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Argonne were reduced 7 percent.
• The lowest reductiort at .05
ppm was 1.5 percent in corn tests
at Argonne in 1981 and for sorghum
there in 1982.
• As ozone increased, yields
declined for all the crops tested. At
.06 ppm, for example, ■ soybean
yields were cut by 17 percent, and
at .09 the percent.
Rabies Control Bill
HARRISBURG - With a
growing threat of rabies spreading
through parts of central Penn
sylvania, the State House of
Representatives has passed a
measure co-sponsored by Rep.
Samuel Morris, D-Pottstown, to
establish a statewide system for
prevention and control of the
disease.
The legislation, written with the
aid of rabies researchers at
Philadelphia’s Wistar Institute,
would combine the resources of the
state Health and Agriculture
Departments and the Penn
sylvania Game Commission in
efforts to curb the spread of the
disease among domestic and wild
mammals.
“The number of confirmed
rabies cases went from 16 in 1979 to
450 last year, and appears to be
more than doubling in 1986,”
Morris said. “This bill represents
an all-out state effort to arrest the
movement of rabies toward more
populated areas and bring the
disease back to normal, less
threatening, levels.”
Morris said the current outbreak
of rabies originated in Maryland.
It was initially confined to nine
counties near the Maryland bor
der, he said, but has spread to 30 or
more counties this year.
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Lancaster Fanning Saturday, June 14,1986*011
Ozone enters a plant as its leaves
absorb carbon dioxide necessary
for photosynthesis, in which plants
use sunlight to form car
bohydrates. When damaged by
ozone, a plant’s leaves will age
prematurely and discolor, leaf
cells will die, and photosynthesis
and growth will decrease.
House Okays
Under the bill approved by the
House, the Department of Health,
in cooperation with other state
agencies, would monitor cases of
rabies in domestic and wild
animals and declare designated
risk areas of the state.
Within those areas, all dogs and
cats over three months of age
would be required by law to
receive rabies vaccinations either
through private veterinarians or
through low-cost rabies clinics to
be set up in affected counties.
Individuals, such as fanners and
kennel owners, who had ad
ministered their own rabies shots
to pets and livestock prior to
passage of the bill would be
allowed to continue doing so as
long as they kept accurate records.
The bill (H.B. 2164), approved by
a vote of 193 to 0, also includes
strict reporting requirements
covering animals which have
bitten or otherwise exposed
humans to possible rabies in
fection. These cases, and those
involving animals suspected of
having rabies, would have to be
reported immediately to local
county health agencies.
State and local agencies would
also be involved in monitoring
rabies cases and conducting public
education campaigns on the
disease in risk areas.
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