Feature Channels: Plants

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Water quality is threatened by a long history of fertilizer use on land, Canadian scientists find

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Crops being irrigated with an overhead irrigation system.10/03/2018By Jennifer MatthewsUNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Global sustainability is important now more than ever due to increasing urban populations and the resulting stress it can have on natural resources. But increased populations in cities may lead to greater efficiency, as a team of Penn State researchers discovered when they analyzed the water footprint of 65 mid- to large-sized U.

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Satellites and other remote technology are able to gather information as varied as soil moisture, crop yields, and growing conditions. How will this improve food security world-wide? The Special Session Symposium, “Advances in the Use of Earth Observations for Crop Modeling and Monitoring for Food Security,” will address the topic.

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Crop breeders are developing a biofortified wheat that could make proper nutrition easier.

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Sea lettuce, a fast-growing seaweed that spawns massive “green tides,” is a prolific thief, according to research that for the first time sequenced the genome of a green seaweed

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Scientists from the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) and Cornell have boosted a carbon-craving enzyme called RuBisCO to turbocharge photosynthesis in corn. The discovery promises to be a key step in improving agricultural efficiency and yield, according to new research in Nature Plants, Oct. 1.

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By combining genomics and gene editing, researchers have figured out how to rapidly bring a plant known as the groundcherry toward domestication.

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When levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rise, most plants do something unusual: They thicken their leaves. Now two University of Washington scientists have shown that this reaction by plants will actually worsen climate change by making the global "carbon sink" contributed by plants was less productive.

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At a time when changes to climate are expected to impact crop yields, UD scientists are part of an interdisciplinary team that will look to make crops more resilient to meet the demands of producing more food in climates with higher temperatures.

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Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) with partners at the Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI) have shown that a recently-discovered variety of the substance, catechyl lignin (C-lignin), has attributes that could make it well-suited as the starting point for a range of bioproducts.

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Researchers show that gene loss — not the evolution of new genes — helped drive the fly amanita mushroom into its symbiotic relationship with plants.

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Nanoparticles derived from green mango peel could be the key to remediating oil sludge in contaminated soil according to new research from the University of South Australia.

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Pea aphids – a serious agricultural pest – have the ability to see and avoid a common, aphid-killing bacteria on plant leaves, according to a new Cornell study published Sept. 27 in Current Biology.

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“Regional Differences in Cover Crops” symposium will present latest research on cover crops' uses and potential impact.

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An important part of plant genetic resources is crop wild relatives. These are closely related to crop species but have not been domesticated by humans. These plant genetic materials and those who care for them are vital for human survival.

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Sunflower pollen lowers pathogen infection rates and contributes to healthier bumble bee and honey bee colonies.

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The American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society will hold their annual meeting Nov. 4-7, 2018, in Baltimore, MD. The theme of the meeting is “Enhancing Productivity in a Changing Climate.” The Canadian Society of Agronomy is also collaborating.

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Scientists identify new details of how a sugar-signaling molecule helps regulate oil production in plant cells. The work could point to new ways to engineer plants to produce substantial amounts of oil for use as biofuels or in the production of other oil-based products.

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In a paper published Sept. 24 in the journal Nature Plants, researchers announced that the gene FT — the primary driver of the transition to flowering in plants each spring — does something unexpected in Arabidopsis thaliana plants grown in natural environments, with implications for the artificial growing conditions scientists commonly used in the lab.

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For angiosperms — or flowering plants — one of the most important decisions facing them each year is when to flower.

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There’s some wild plants afoot! A series of blog posts in Sustainable, Secure Food highlights the important role crop wild relatives, the wild and weedy cousins of domesticated crops, play in future food security.

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New opportunities such as seed production are leading to new research in the Texas A&M AgriLife Research high tunnel project near Bushland.

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University of Florida scientists are finding that by covering new citrus trees with mesh, they can keep disease-carrying insects from harming the plants. That could be a big step toward stemming the deadly citrus greening disease, UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers say.

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Coffee harvesting is often done with heavy machinery that can compact the soil. Additionally, up to 20% of coffee berries fall to the ground. Researchers brewed up a solution to restore soil and decrease the loss.

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A consortium of Idaho researchers will receive a $20 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to examine how environmental stressors impact the growth, survival and reproduction of native plants and animals.

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The Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) is celebrating Crop Wild Relative Week September 22-29, 2018. The week features information on the benefits these wild cousins bring to today’s familiar crops.

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A system designed to protect citrus trees from the deadly greening disease withstood the ravaging winds of Hurricane Irma last year, University of Florida scientists say. With reinforcements installed after the storm, they’ll likely withstand even more dangerous storms. Using Citrus Under Protective Screening, or “CUPS,” growers can keep the Asian citrus psyllid away from their trees.

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Food production doesn’t have to be a victim of climate change. New research from Michigan State University suggests that crop yields and the global food supply chain can be preserved by harnessing the critical, and often overlooked, partner in food supply – soil.

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A Rutgers-led team has discovered how plants harness microbes in soil to get nutrients, a process that could be exploited to boost crop growth, fight weeds and slash the use of polluting fertilizers and herbicides.

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Swamps and other wetlands get a bad rap. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) September 15 Soils Matter blog explains why these natural features are important--and worth saving.

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The newest offering from Cornell University’s grape breeders is a fruit that’s big, bold and comes with a towering history. Those factors led the grape’s breeders to name the new variety Everest Seedless, a nod to the celebrated Nepalese mountain, said Bruce Reisch, professor of horticulture in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and grape breeder with Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, New York.

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After supporting a season of growth, your garden soil deserves a rest! Soils Matter, Soil Science Society of America’s science-based blog, has tips for putting your garden to bed this fall.

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A team of researchers led by Assistant Professor Yan Ning from the National University of Singapore has developed a new sustainable chemical approach to produce a series of amino acids from woody biomass derivatives such as grass, straw and wood chips from agricultural wastes. The team’s novel chemical method has potential to revolutionise amino acid production of the future and transform the food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

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Consumers say they’ll pay more for strawberries grown in a manner that is sustainable, the research shows. Researchers defined “sustainable” as production methods that help keep the ecosystem healthy. More specifically, researchers described five sustainable practices: less fertilizer, less pesticide and fewer negative impacts on air, soil and water quality.

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The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), a technology incubator and platform funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation and administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is expanding its program to advance technologies that address the interconnection of food, water and energy.

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The podcast, “All in for Citrus,” will launch the last week in September and will feature short interviews with scientists working to find solutions to citrus greening and other devastating citrus diseases.

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Fertilisation is a pivotal process underlying all sexual reproduction, yet its molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. Scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna have now identified a protein they called “Bouncer” as a crucial factor for sperm entry into the egg. Remarkably, this protein is sufficient to allow fertilization between different species. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Science.

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Cornell University’s berry breeding program is releasing two new varieties, which will be available for planting in spring 2019: a strawberry, Dickens, and a raspberry, Crimson Treasure. Both varieties produce large fruits with vibrant colors that maintain peak flavor for longer than most heritage varieties.

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Spiderwebs can withstand a predator’s impact while still helping catch and detect small prey. Spiders architect these lightweight networks for strength and elasticity using different silks and geometric structures. Recently, researchers unraveled a new energy absorption mechanism that explains how spiderwebs can be simultaneously sensitive and impact-resistant. The research team reports their findings in Applied Physics Letters.

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The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the University of Missouri - Columbia (MU) announced today that R. Keith Slotkin, Ph.D. and Bing Yang, Ph.D., have been appointed to joint faculty positions between the Danforth Center and MU. They are the second and third faculty hired through a collaborative initiative that aims to elevate regional plant science to address global challenges.

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Low crop production can grow into a national and global security issue, said Jim Anderson, director of the UF/IFAS Institute for Sustainable Food Systems.

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To help meet consumer demand for more flavorful mangos without grit or fibrous flesh, University of Florida scientists will try to identify superior varieties so mango producers can choose the best types of the fruit to grow in the Sunshine State.

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Findings Suggest Rootstock Choice May Be One Key to Optimizing Yields and Tree Health

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Sam Hutton, an associate professor of horticultural sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, will use a new $490,000 federal grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to find ways to develop improved varieties that contain genes to help tomatoes thwart Fusarium wilt.

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UF/IFAS researchers will get help from scientists at Iowa State University, the University of Wisconsin, Washington State University and the USDA to conduct the study. The grant comes from the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which is part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, an arm of the USDA.

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High-efficiency identification of products of homologous recombination in plants as a tool to test gene function

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In a paper published Aug. 31 in the journal Science, a team led by scientists at the University of Washington reports that insect activity in today's temperate, crop-growing regions will rise along with temperatures. Researchers project that this activity, in turn, will boost worldwide losses of rice, corn and wheat by 10-25 percent for each degree Celsius that global mean surface temperatures rise.

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It’s been a good year for the winter wheat breeding program, with some experimental lines showing up to a 10 percent increase in yield over already released varieties.