Economic Importance
The success of the agricultural world is heavily dependent on the weather. Cold weather conditions are directly responsible for the appearance of frost on plants and most importantly, crops. In the United States alone, it has been estimated that frost accounts for approximately $1 billion in crop damage each year. As P. syringae commonly inhabits plant surfaces, its ice nucleating nature incites frost development, freezing the buds of the plant and destroying the occurring crop. The introduction of an ice-minus strain of P. syringae to the surface of plants would incur competition between the strains. Should the ice-minus strain win out, the ice nucleate provided by P. syringae would no longer be present, lowering the level of frost development on plant surfaces at normal water freezing temperature (0oC). Even if the ice-minus strain does not win out, the amount of ice nucleate present from ice-plus P. syringae would be reduced due to competition. Decreased levels of frost generation at normal water freezing temperature would translate into a lowered quantity of crops lost due to frost damage, rendering higher crop yields overall.
Read more about this topic: Ice-minus Bacteria
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or importance:
“... feminism is a political term and it must be recognized as such: it is political in women’s terms. What are these terms? Essentially it means making connections: between personal power and economic power, between domestic oppression and labor exploitation, between plants and chemicals, feelings and theories; it means making connections between our inside worlds and the outside world.”
—Anica Vesel Mander, U.S. author and feminist, and Anne Kent Rush (b. 1945)
“When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)