The high price of sweetening your Sunday morning pancakes may be old news. A project led by Cornell University researchers promises to reverse the upward trend and help maple syrup producers get more sap from less land.
A new analysis indicates that if the land used to support animal-based diets were instead used for food crops, it would add enough food to feed a further 350 million people – more than the entire population of the U.S.
A team that includes Cal Poly Pomona scientists was honored for their work on an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to help control the spread of the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP)
The availability of livestock as a food source for vampire bats influences their immune response and infection by bacterial pathogens, according to a new paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Because cattle ranching is common in areas where the bats live, the findings have implications for human as well as animal health.
Research in an arid area of Texas has yielded a statewide rainwater harvesting award for a group at The University of Texas at El Paso.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley have discovered that as plants develop they craft their root microbiome, favoring microbes that consume very specific metabolites. Their study could help scientists identify ways to enhance the soil microbiome for improved carbon storage and plant productivity.
As you watch the Masters Tournament, your eye may be drawn to more than the legends on the greens. What about the greens themselves? The March 22nd Sustainable, Secure Food blog explains the painstaking labor needed to make the golf courses so perfectly smooth and green.
Some waters are so shallow, they're susceptible to boat propellers scarring the seagrass beds in them.
To make protein, soybean plants need a lot of nitrogen. Beneficial bacteria in root nodules typically assist. A new study shows it’s possible to increase the number of soybean root nodules—and the bacteria that live there--to further increase crop yields. This could remove the need to apply additional nitrogen fertilizers.
West Virginia University alumnus Jothiganesh Shanmugasundaram received an Outstanding Scientist Award during the National Conference on Climate Resilience for Sustainable Livelihood in Annamalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu, India on Wednesday, Feb. 28.
Patrick Dickinson, Texas A&M AgriLife Research water conservation horticulturist in Dallas, gives tips for repairing and maintaining sprinkler systems for EPA WaterSense Fix A Leak Week 2018. (Texas A&M AgriLife video by Gabe Saldana)
The University of Portsmouth is playing a major role in a European project using agricultural and fisheries waste to develop sustainable methods and products to improve soil quality and reduce CO2 emissions.
New research reveals that even the highest performing maize crops contain rare harmful mutations that limit crop productivity.
Rutgers doctoral student Didik Prasetyo’s passion is learning more about the endangered apes and trying to conserve their habitats and populations, which face enormous pressure from deforestation from logging, palm oil and paper pulp production, and hunting. He coauthored an alarming recent study in Current Biology on the estimated loss of more than 100,000 Bornean orangutans between 1999 and 2015.
How will the farms of the future feed a projected 9.8 billion people by 2050? Berkeley Lab’s “smart farm” project marries microbiology and machine learning in an effort to reduce the need for chemical fertilizers and enhance soil carbon uptake, thus improving the long-term viability of the land while increasing crop yields.
Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the molecular brakeman that holds kinesins in check until their cargo is needed.
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State University researchers have discovered how weeds develop resistance to the popular herbicide glyphosate, a finding that could have broad future implications in agriculture and many other industries. Their work is detailed in the March 12 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Can one seedling, or one female bird, be so superior to the rest that it will inevitably become the “lucky” one to grow to the sky, or help perpetuate the species? The short answer: No.
When a team of scientists started studying how native eucalyptus trees in Australia reacted to extreme heat and drought, they thought they knew what they would find. They expected to learn about the mechanisms of the trees' decline. They expected hydraulic failure and carbon starvation. But that's not what they saw.
The colleges of engineering and agriculture worked together over the summer to find out if turfgrass conserves more water than real grass does. At the end of the project they concluded that turfgrass requires a lot more water to stay cool throughout the day than real grass does.
This new study punches a hole in the idea that increased genetic complexity of sex chromosomes accompanied the origin of sexes.
Home and large-scale growers share a common struggle: weeds! The March 7th Sustainable, Secure Food blog post explains what makes weeds survive—and how to tackle them.
Researchers at Durham University in the UK have identified a crucial link in the process of how plants regulate their antiviral responses. The research is published in the March 2 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
The same products that get rid of internal parasites in livestock may adversely impact the dung beetles that help break down dung. That could be bad news for the dung beetles and livestock production.
Letting the soil rest can be difficult economically for farmers. Researchers experimented with crop rotation and grazing to discover the least possible amount of time it would take to allow the soil to heal.
Fertilisers with lower environmental impacts and reduced costs for farmers are being developed by University of Adelaide researchers in the world-first use of the new advanced material graphene as a fertiliser carrier.
For years, scientists have argued about whether managing both nitrogen and phosphorus – versus managing strictly phosphorus or just nitrogen – would control harmful algal blooms.
A team of University of Georgia researchers has developed a new way to breed plants with better traits. By introducing a human protein into the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana, researchers found that they could selectively activate silenced genes already present within the plant.
University of Adelaide researchers have discovered how grapes “breathe”, and that shortage of oxygen leads to cell death in the grape. The discovery raises many questions about the potentially significant impacts on grape and wine quality and flavour and vine management, and may lead to new ways of selecting varieties for warming climates.
With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, thoughts turn to the Irish experience of the 1800s. This includes the devastating conditions in Ireland that led many to the U.S. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) March 1 Soils Matter blog post explains the agricultural lessons behind Irish Potato Famine.
A new study involving Iowa State University scientists explores how birds in the Mariana Islands help to disperse the seeds of a wild chili plant. The research highlights the unique ways different species help one another, a concept known as mutualism.
When Lena Struwe was hiking in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve in Costa Rica three years ago, she spotted a yellowish harvestman, a spider-type animal, on a hiking trail rail and took a photo with her camera. It turned out her photo of the long-legged arachnid, Eucynorta conigera, was the first ever of that species and only the third sighting of it ever reported.
Forests across the United States—and especially forest soils—store massive amounts of carbon, offsetting about 10 percent of the country's annual greenhouse gas emissions and helping to mitigate climate change.
Fungicides can help prevent the lodging and yield loss that stem canker causes, but timing is crucial. A new disease-forecasting model that predicts stem canker risk can help.
Researchers at the University of Delaware and the University of California-Davis have uncovered new details of how chloroplasts move about in times of trouble. It's the fundamental kind of research information that helps scientists understand plant biology and could help farmers prevent crop loss.
New University of Colorado Boulder-led research has established a causal link between climate warming and the localized extinction of a common Rocky Mountain flowering plant, a result that could serve as a herald of future population declines.
New University of Colorado Boulder-led research has established a causal link between climate warming and the localized extinction of a common Rocky Mountain flowering plant, a result that could serve as a herald of future population declines.
Which is better for bird diversity: Arabica or Robusta beans?
Armed with a $600,000 grant, Michigan State University researchers will work alongside Latino migrant farmers to reshape how Michigan harvests fruit – and cultivate a new workforce.
What can be made with unwanted materials, looks like charcoal, and provides multiple benefits to soil health? Biochar! The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) February 15 Soils Matter blog explains what biochar is and how it helps improve—or decontaminate--soil.
Scientists have discovered an extreme lack of genetic diversity and other threats to the future adaptability of domestic chickpeas, the primary source of protein of 20 percent of the world's people. But they also collected wild relatives of chickpeas in Turkey that hold great promise as a source of new genes for traits like drought-resistance, resistance to pod-boring beetles, and heat tolerance.
A circle of life–and nitrogen–is playing out in farms across the United States. And researchers are trying to get the timing right. The goal is to time nutrient release from cover crops to better match the nutrient needs of specific cash crops.
When it comes to avoiding Lyme disease, know your forest. That's the cautionary tale from a new study which found that ticks in urban parks in Delaware dominated by an invasive rose bush were nearly twice as likely to be infected with Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, as compared to ticks from uninvaded forest fragments.
A team of scientists led by WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) has developed a conservation blueprint to protect one of the most biodiverse regions in Africa: the Albertine Rift, home to mountain and Grauer’s gorillas, golden monkeys, chimpanzees, elephants, and 162 vertebrate, and 350 plant species unique to this region.
A research team led by the University of Georgia has discovered that manipulation of the same gene in poplar trees and switchgrass produced plants that grow better and are more efficiently converted to biofuels.
Despite the bad rap snakes often get, they are more central to ecology than most people realize. New research reveals that snakes might even play a key role in dispersing plant seeds.
House Speaker Beth Harwell led a delegation of Tennessee legislators to campus Monday, Feb. 5, to learn more about Middle Tennessee State University’s Tennessee Center for Botanical Medicine Research and its ongoing studies with nonpsychotropic cannabinoids, which are derived from hemp.
After 100 years of assertions about the roots of citrus, a global group of scientists – including a University of Florida professor – has traced the evolutionary history of Florida’s signature crop up to 8 million years ago in the Himalayas of Southeast Asia.
A new tool may help growers make better decisions in applying nitrogen fertilizer to their rice fields.
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