USDA And Russian Scientists Develop High-Tech Crop Map AgroAtlas
is a new interactive website that shows the geographic
distributions of 100 crops; 640 species of crop diseases, pests,
and weeds; and 560 wild crop relatives growing in Russia and
neighboring countries. Downloadable maps and geographic
information system (GIS) software are also available, allowing
layering of data, such as that relating major wheat production
areas to concentrations of Russian wheat aphids. According to
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plant geneticist Stephanie
Greene, the impetus behind developing AgroAtlas was to promote
world food security, particularly in Newly Independent
States””countries of the former Soviet Union striving to broaden
their agricultural base. Greene works in the National Temperate
Forage Legume Genetic Resources Unit operated at Prosser, Wash.,
by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA’s principal
intramural scientific research agency. Greene leads the
AgroAtlas project with Alexandr N. Afoni