Revolution In the Desert

With the Southwest facing one of the worst droughts in its history, the hunt was on for new ways to get around the perennial shortage of rain. Last week in El Paso, young (30) Dr. Peter Duisberg, agricultural chemist from New Mexico A. & M., reported to the Southwestern Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that desert research might well be "opening up a new agricultural frontier." He was ready to name scores of plants that need almost no water and might be converted into products varying all the way from varnish to broomstraws.

Chemist Duisberg had begun his own experiments with the creosote bush (Larrea divaricata), an acrid, sticky evergreen that thrives in millions of acres of drought-stricken wasteland. Last winter, using a distilling apparatus made from junkheap parts, Duisberg showed how to turn the hardy bush into a palatable stock feed.* With one byproduct already available to increase the margin of profit (nordihydroguaiaretic acid, a fat preservative that brings $35 a lb.), he managed to develop another: a quick-drying varnish that is almost certain to be salable. Other promising plants on Duisberg's list:

P: Canaigre (Rumex hymenosepalus), also known as wild rhubarb, long recognized as a source of fine tannic acids. High on the critical materials list during World War II, most tannin is still imported. Canaigre also gives starches and sugars which ferment to alcohol, might provide an antibiotic effective against some forms of tuberculosis.

P: Bear Grass (Nolina microcarpa which yields excellent broomstraw. The supply in southwestern New Mexico alone is estimated at about 1,000,000 tons. The market price: $240 a ton.

P: Century Plants (Agave), which burst forth in one glorious bloom and then die. A good source of hard fibers, they also produce alcohol (including the entire supply of Mexico's national alcoholic drinks --tequila, mescal, pulque).

Duisberg's catalogue includes dozens of other products of desert plants--liquid wax, carbon paper, steroids, burlap, even fire sticks for Boy Scouts. But New Mexico A. & M. has decided that Duisberg's work, despite possible future rewards, is "too fundamental," and is dropping the project. Chemist Duisberg, however, is not worried about having to shut up shop. With an eye to the thirsty future, half a dozen other colleges are.already clamoring for his services.

* In its natural state, perhaps its only admirers were 75 Levantine camels, imported by Jefferson Davis, then U.S. Secretary of War, "for Army transportation and other military purposes." They preferred the "greasewood's" noisome leaves to the lushest grazing grass.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.