Posts

Showing posts from November, 2015

Microbial farming

Image
We know the role of microbes in agriculture both beneficial and harmful. It is quite interesting to know fungi are reared as farms. Ants belonging to different genera use plant chewate as a substrate to grow fungi as farms and graze them. Same thing is practiced by marsh snail  Littoraria irrorata.  Leaf cutting ants growing fungus. Image source:  http://www.harunyahya.com/image/miracle_in_the_ant/atta1.jpg  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Littoraria_irrorata.jpg Source and for further reading: http://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2015/11/a-snippet-who-invented-agriculture-the-ants-or-the-bees.html http://www.pnas.org/content/100/26/15643.full.pdf