Feature Channels: Agriculture

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This fall, Stony Brook University is introducing a fresh new technology – a hydroponic Freight Farm – where student farmers can grow crops year-round in an indoor environment. Created in a discarded shipping container converted into a fully operational hydroponic farm known as the Leafy Green Machine, the Freight Farm will be primarily managed by Stony Brook students. Using the latest in farm-management technologies such as cloud-synced growth data, live camera feeds and a smartphone app that monitors and controls light levels inside the container anytime, anywhere, the students will get hands-on experience planting and harvesting lettuce, and Campus Dining will use the fresh produce to feed the student body. Stony Brook University is the first higher education campus to offer students a hydroponic Freight Farm.

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A monthly survey of independent bankers in a 10-state region indicates slower economic growth in the months ahead.

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Edward H. Egelman, PhD, of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has used the Titan Krios microscope to determine the structure of the bamboo mosaic virus, a flexible filamentous virus that has eluded researchers for decades.

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The solid waste left over from wine-making could make a competitive biofuel, University of Adelaide researchers have found.

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Visitors to the site can find 104 publications supporting the ratings in the guide and can conduct queries of the rootstock information. The information and tools let you make informed citrus rootstock selections for your groves.

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Rice plants stress in heat. Can't go indoors. So find out what scientists at Texas A&M AgriLife Research are doing about it.

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Biological control of pests, weeds, plants and animals gives “the best hope to providing lasting, environmentally sound and socially acceptable pest management,” according to a new book edited by two UF/IFAS scientists.

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A Kansas State University biochemist is studying Camelina sativa — a nonfood oilseed crop — to see how it can be used for biofuel or even industrial and food-related applications.

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University of Florida researchers devised a “machine vision system,” to count citrus fruit that has dropped early,which will save time and money.

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A new University of Florida scientist is trying to find an insect that will eat the fly that’s damaging such fruit as strawberries and blueberries in the Sunshine State. Such a finding would be critical in Florida, where the strawberry harvest brought in $267 million in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Cross contamination in commercial processing facilities that prepare spinach and other leafy greens for the market can make people sick. But researchers are reporting a new, easy-to-implement method that could eliminate or reduce such incidences. The scientists will present their work at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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Tomato lovers rejoice: Adding or rearranging a few simple steps in commercial processing could dramatically improve the flavor of this popular fruit sold in the grocery store, according to researchers. They will present their new work on the topic in Boston at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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In South Africa, sweet potatoes are a traditional crop for rural families. “We realized it would be great if we could develop a local variety [of sweet potato] which has good yield, high dry mass, and desirable taste attributes, and promote it to combat vitamin A deficiency,” says researcher.

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Researchers from the Natural Resource Ecology Lab at Colorado State University and their partners have completed a historical analysis of greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. Great Plains that demonstrates the potential to completely eliminate agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from the region.

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A UF/IFAS plant pathologist calls the finding a "game-changer" for the ornamental plant. But now, growers know the disease is out there and can make necessary adjustments, using fungicides for disease management.

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The New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station is improving a variety thought to be lost to history.

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It’s happy hour at a lab in College Station. The cocktail of choice, developed by scientists with Texas A&M AgriLife Research, is one that stops or prevents the deadly Pierce’s disease on wine grapes. The discovery could turn a new leaf on the multimillion-dollar U.S. wine industry. Hear, hear.

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Researchers at Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, in collaboration with colleagues at Iowa State University and Texas Tech University, have discovered a novel fatigue syndrome affecting feedlot cattle. The syndrome is similar to one affecting the swine industry.

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Looking to save money and water when you irrigate? UF/IFAS scientists have developed an app for that. Want to know what plants to grow in your garden? You guessed it: UF/IFAS has an app for that as well.

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A study co-authored by a Kansas State University researcher and one of her former students helps with estimating cattle movement to determine disease risk.

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Florida’s strawberry producers must protect their multimillion-dollar annual crop from freeze damage. Typically, growers spray water on the crop during a cold snap, but they are looking for ways to use less water, yet produce the same amount of crop. New University of Florida research shows growers can keep using both their current sprinkler spacing and low pressure or enhanced real-time irrigation control to save water – and they can produce the same strawberry crop yield during mild freezes.

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Healthy soils mean healthy food, protects human health

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The disease that threatens to destroy Florida’s $10.7 billion citrus industry appears to have its own mechanism to promote its spread, making it harder to control.

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Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population, but the paddies it’s grown in contributes up to 17 percent of global methane emissions -- about 100 million tons a year. Now, with the addition of a single gene, rice can be cultivated to emit virtually no methane, more starch for a richer food source and biomass for energy production, as announced in the July 30 edition of Nature and online.

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The next generation of equipment is coming to the world’s largest climate research facility, the Southern Great Plains (SGP) field measurement site near Lamont, Oklahoma, which is managed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.

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Not only did the tall narrow rows grow the same amount of vegetables, they retained more fertilizers – reducing what would have leached into groundwater – and they would need half the amount of water. In addition, he cut fumigation rates for pests by as much as 50 percent.

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The French have spent centuries developing grapes with the unique flavor and character of Burgundy region wines. Cold-climate grape producers are counting on science to help shorten that process. Plant scientists Anne Fennell and Rhoda Burrows from South Dakota State University are part of the research team helping cold-climate grape growers carve a niche in the American wine industry through two U.S Department of Agriculture projects.

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Walk into a science museum, and you may read the words “paleontology” or “astronomy.” But you’re not likely to find the word “agriculture” in any science museum, even though many exhibits relate to agricultural content or practices. Katie Stofer found this gap when she surveyed 29 science museums in cities of all sizes across the U.S. Stofer hopes to help bridge that gap.

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A new study released just days after the U.S. House passed a bill that would prevent states from requiring labels on genetically modified foods reveals that GMO labeling would not act as warning labels and scare consumers away from buying products with GMO ingredients.

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Back before chemical pesticides and herbicides, farmers had to come up with ways to kill the weeds that took over their fields. One method used “back in the day” was letting pigs loose in fields that were not being used for crops for a season and allowing the pigs to do what they do naturally: dig up the roots of weeds and fertilize the land.

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New research from Queen's University Belfast, UK, shows that cooking rice with a percolation-based system removes up to 85% of inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen

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Researchers find improved soil properties in strip-till compared to no-till method A major result was that after just five years, soil organic matter content was 8.6% greater in the strip-till plots when compared to the no-till plots. Furthermore, bulk density was reduced by 4% and penetration resistance, the force a root must exert to move in the soil, decreased by 18%.

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Basil can add a little zest to any meal. But downy mildew disease threatens the herb’s very existence. University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers are trying to manage the disease with little to no spraying.

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The 3rd edition of the Florida Citrus Rootstock Selection Guide is now available. The updated guide is a convenient, easy-to-use reference to 20 characteristics of 45 rootstocks. It highlights 21 recently released rootstocks, some of which show reduced citrus greening incidence in early field trials.

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A new variety of peanut, called OLé, has recently been released by a team of researchers at the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and their colleagues at Oklahoma State University. OLé peanuts have longer shelf lives and increased disease resistance compared to other peanut varieties, and pack high amounts of a heart-healthy fatty acid called oleic acid.

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In a study published online July 16, 2015 in Science Express, scientists looked at roles of three phytohormones, regulatory chemicals produced by a plant’s immune system, in controlling the composition of the root microbiome in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

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Space may not be the final frontier for Anna-Lisa Paul and Robert Ferl; they want to grow plants there. Because, who knows, we may one day try to live on Mars, and to survive, we’ll have to grow our own food. Thus far, experiments by the two pioneering scientists have proven so successful that, earlier this month, NASA recognized their research with one of its three awards in the category of the Most Compelling Results.

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Nearly half of Floridians eat more seafood than they did five to 10 years ago, but 40 percent still do not eat the federally recommended dietary intake of seafood. Floridians also know seafood is good for them, and they like their seafood caught or harvested in the Sunshine State. But many are not sure they’d know Florida seafood if they saw it, and they’re hesitant to pay the higher cost of local seafood.

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Scientists attending a workshop at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory slipped the leash of scientific caution and tried to imagine what they would do if they could redesign plants at will. The ideas they dreamed up may make the difference between full bellies and empty ones in the near future when population may outrun the ability of traditional plant breeding to increase yields.

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Scientists discovered that coffee berry borers worldwide share 14 bacterial species in their digestive tracts that degrade and detoxify caffeine. They also found the most prevalent of these bacteria has a gene that helps break down caffeine. Their research sheds light on the ecology of the destructive bug and could lead to new ways to fight it.

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Growers in Florida’s $100 million-a-year avocado industry could see a rise in the price of avocados in the short term due to a reduction in domestic production, because of the deadly Laurel Wilt pathogen, a new University of Florida study shows.

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If not for a single genetic mutation, each kernel on a juicy corn cob would be trapped inside a inedible casing as tough as a walnut shell. The mutation switches one amino acid for another at a specific position in a protein regulating formation of these shells in modern corn’s wild ancestor, according to a study published in the July 2015 issue of GENETICS, a publication of the Genetics Society of America.

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A new study on the genomic signatures of adaptation in crop plants can help predict how crop varieties respond to stress from their environments. It is the first study to document that these genomic signatures of adaptation can help identify plants that will do well under certain stresses, such drought or toxic soils.

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As a good source of protein, Vitamin A, calcium, iron and fiber, broccoli is so full of nutrients, some call it a “super food.” It’s also popular at the supermarket, whether it’s grown in America or overseas. But Americans are willing to pay $1 more per pound for U.S. organic broccoli than that from China and Mexico and up to 32 cents more per pound than that grown in Canada.

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On Thursday, more than 50 national and international peanut scientists and researchers will tour the fields and review the varieties to determine if there are any they would like to try in their areas.

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Helpful bacteria promote growth, less fertilizer on crops.

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A new study involving a Kansas State University entomologist reveals that the genes of a fruit fly that has plagued American apple producers for more than 150 years is the result of an extremely rapid evolutionary change.

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Planting bioenergy crops like willows or switchgrass in rows where commodity crops are having difficulty growing could both provide biomass feedstock and also limit the runoff of nitrogen fertilizer into waterways — all without hurting a farmer’s profits. This is what a group of Argonne National Laboratory scientists has discovered through careful data collection and modeling at a cornfield in Fairbury, Illinois.

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Nian Wang, a researcher with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, is working with a team to develop a microbial-based product, infused with patented plant-defense inducers and beneficial bacteria strains, that he hopes will cure citrus greening.

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Other topics include memories and protein, physics and gas mileage, agriculture and food safety, vaccine for Dengue, retinoblastoma proteins in cancer progression, and more.