Agricultural Biochemistry

Agricultural biochemistry is a branch of applied biochemistry which concerns itself with any and all possible situations involving life processes in the pursuit of agriculture. These may include numerous issues such as the cycles of soil organisms, the nurture of plants and their entire metabolic history, animal husbandry from birth to death, pathological conditions to both plants and animals, the biochemical aspects of genetics in the service of breeding, the preparation of animal and plant foods, the control of insects, the processing of farm products, quick ripening, storage, etc., from the pecullar viewpoint ot agriculture which may be described as the economic utilization of the farm for the production of food. There is also a growing tendency to include the biochemical aspects of chemurgy, which is the utilization of farm products for industrial purposes, such as the production of power alcohol, solvents, drugs, etc.

Where soils and crop improvement are concerned biochemistry is involved in the so-called "classification of soils," their preparation, the working over of fertilizers and their production by the aid of living organisms, and even genetic studies, in which chemicals, e.g. colchicine, are used to produce large or new plants. The effects of heat and cold, chemical reagents like ethylene, on storage and ripening have also biochemical aspects. The ethylene is supposed to react with starch in the ripening process. This field also should include aquaculture, or the growth of plants on synthetic nutrients in solution.

A large division of this subject deals with animal nutrition with the practical objective of obtaining more and better eggs, butter, milk and the like. An agricultural biochemist's interests might lead him to administer female sex hormones in order to induce virgin animals to secrete large amounts of milk. Fertility is an important consideration, and involves the usual attention to vitamin E and the like. Where animals are produced for food the conditions for rapid growth are a subject of serious study. Diets are investigated for special effects, e.g. the kind of fat to develop on a hog.

The pathological aspects of the lives of animals and plants occupy a great deal of the attention of the biochemist in this field. Plant diseases are of a very great variety and attack selectively seeds, roots, stems or leaves. The toxic agents have been extracted in many cases. The first viruses to be studied were plant disease viruses. An entire subject, "forest pathology," has grown up recently, which can be listed here as a close relative of agricultural biochemistry.