This sounds impressive, unless you know all the steps to making a successful hybridization in tomatoes.

Step 1: Tomatoes are mostly cleistogamous (self-pollinate before opening) and perfect flowers. So the anthers need to be removed 2 days before bloom. The exposed stigma is usually marked and covered to prevent cross pollination.

Step 2: Pollen is collected from flowers of the “male” parent by vibrating the shit out of them over a test tube about 3hours hours after opening (depending on humidity). The pollen remains viable for a few days after shedding in refrigeration (longer in liquid N).

Step 3: On the 2nd day the pollen is applied to the stigma from the test tube. The pollinated stigmas are marked again.

Step 4+: successful pollinations begin to swell. Plants are pruned/trellised carefully. This ensures they develop well off the ground with less pressure from diseases and pests.

This robot does the first part of step 3. It’s arguably the least time-consuming and easiest part of the entire process. Its sort of interesting but not a time saver.

Also hybrid tomato seed is a huge value market, but it’s not a huge volume in the grand scheme of things on the production side. The COGS is a negligible part of the process. Its a 97-99% gross margin crop last I saw the numbers. The seed companies can easily afford to pay more for the COGS. Higher pay + shorter hours = higher success rate by hand pollination. Paying double for the workers for 1/2 the day and then sending them home has a much higher success rate and is cheaper overall.

Most of the cost of developing new varieties is on the research side. With cost running as high as 30-40% of the annual sales to constantly develop new varieties or add in yet another resistance to a plague.

Or the social norm of the wealthier class is to steal from the poorer/weaker class. They are constantly rewarded by their peers for displaying this behavior. Children are inherently poorer and weaker than they are.

This is pure greed by these fuckers.

Traditionally the beef market has been predictably cyclical. It follows classic supply and demand cycles using imported beef to help maintain a more predictable cycle.

The reason we have a decreased herd size and sky high beef prices is because the orange moron fucked with international trade. This has led to record high beef prices. International trade has not been allowed to balance out the swings in supply. This fucks over the average Americans food bill.

It also has suppressed pretty much everything that is exported. Like really fucked it over. Wine, fruit, soybeans, corn, wheat, dairy, hay, etc… growers are all going bankrupt.

These are not short-term changes either. Once a supply/trade networks are reworked it does not revert back easily. He’s fucked over farmers for decades.

The last time he was in office he fucked over the soybean growers. Before Brazil and the U.S. had close to an equal share of soy exports. Since the seasons are opposite it allowed for a steady supply through the year. Today, brazil is the largest producer of soy as the purchasing countries punish the U.S. for his stupidity.

Its the same effect as showing people what goes into a hot dog. Pink slime is nasty but they still sell a shit ton of them. (Not to me…gag.) So no, at this point I don’t think the feedlot and dairy owners care that much about the photos getting out.

If the FCC bans drones flying over their herd, they can freely shoot, net, etc them down before they injure the animals. Currently drone operators would be liable for damage only after it is caused.

I do occasionally entertain myself when bored around organic enthusiast. I mention that the organic industry use of manure is completely dependent on factory farming of beef, chicken and the widespread use of GMO crops. Gets some of the more ignorant people all worked up.

Meat processing plants are a very different environment from a “factory farm” aka feedlots. They haul the animals in, pen them for a short time under tight quarters with just water. Then push them through the killing line. Due to the tight quarters they don’t have much room to move around and injure themselves. There is also only a couple of mega-companies that own these facilities today. They do care very much about their image to the public.

Feedlots or dairies are where cattle are confined for years. They are extremely skittish of anything new due to lack of exposure. Since there are thousands of these around and they are more removed from the consumer, they tend to care more about immediate monetary losses more than PR.

The people of the town of George would be very upset if you renamed the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%2C_Washington

Honestly, I doubt they give a fuck about the pictures.

Ever seen a drone flying over a herd of cattle? If it’s low enough it panics them. They start sprinting away from them. I know a few ranchers who use them to roundup their cattle rather than chase after them.

Now you take this behavior in a pen. They sprint into the fences - damaging the fences and injuring or even killing the cattle.

Since Reagan they have been pushing a “War on Drugs”. For those people “Since we are at war killing people is perfectly fine.”

Cops shooting an unarmed drug dealer in the back is okay with them. So is using the military randomly kill people in other countries.

Most people handle the infection easily. Its dangerous to the immunodeficient, infants and the elderly.

The main risk is from dehydration. So the first recommended treatment is over-the-counter anti-diarrheal medications and drinking lots of fluids.

If it lasts for more than a week or you suffer from symptoms of dehydration (clammy skin, dizziness, not peeing etc) you’ll need to seek urgent medical care. Someplace that can give you an IV.

Not a medical DR, I just play one occasionally for shits and giggles. So this could be correct or a bunch of bullshit.

So late Sunday.