Feature Channels: Agriculture

• share
• favorite_border

A comprehensive new analysis released today says that nearly half (49%) of all recent tropical deforestation is the result of illegal clearing for commercial agriculture. The study also finds that the majority of this illegal destruction was driven by overseas demand for agricultural commodities including palm oil, beef, soy, and wood products. In addition to devastating impacts on forest-dependent people and biodiversity, the illegal conversion of tropical forests for commercial agriculture is estimated to produce 1.47 gigatonnes of carbon each year—equivalent to 25% of the EU’s annual fossil fuel-based emissions.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study suggests that nearly half of workers who care for animals in large industrial hog farming operations may be carrying home livestock-associated bacteria in their noses, and that this potentially harmful bacteria remains with them up to four days after exposure.

• share
• favorite_border

An invasive weed poses a serious and frightening threat to farming families in Ethiopia, but scientists have unleashed a new weapon in the fight against hunger: a tiny, speckled beetle.

• share
• favorite_border

Texas has been known for its oil production for almost 150 years. Now, a new oil industry is sprouting in what may bring producers cash and consumers a local, edible choice — olive oil. Olive trees, native to the Mediterranean region, have been planted on an estimated 2,000 acres in the state already, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

If Americans altered their menus to conform to federal dietary recommendations, emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases tied to agricultural production could increase significantly, according to a new study by University of Michigan researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

A University of Florida-led research team’s development of an RFID tracking system could change the way companies ship fresh fruits and vegetables, providing consumers the freshest products available.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Adelaide research has shown that piglets can be weaned later with no negative effects on sow birthing frequency.

• share
• favorite_border

Coffee drinkers beware: Surprise ingredients may be hiding in your coffee, and growing shortages may well increase the chance of having more fillers in the future. A new test that will be reported today at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, may quickly find them before the beverage reaches stores and restaurants.

• share
• favorite_border

Thanks to a USDA grant, two professors are teaching farmers, ranchers how to better utilize the Internet.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at NCAR and partner organizations are making significant headway in predicting the behavior of the atmosphere on a variety of fronts. Highlights include improving weather forecasts, advancing renewable energy capabilities, helping satellites avoid space debris, and estimating the risk of a crop slowdown due to climate change.

• share
• favorite_border

Spring rains that delayed planting and a cool summer have farmers concerned about whether their corn will reach maturity before the first frost. Two new online decision-making tools available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Useful to Usable research project will help, according to state climatologist and South Dakota State University associate professor Dennis Todey. Farmers are producing crops under more variable conditions, so these tools can be critical to both food safety and the farmers’ economic survival.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

A new approach for formulating the active chemical ingredients of common drugs and agricultural products has been developed by researchers in Italy, and it holds broad potential to make such products more durable, safer, cheaper, easier to manufacture and less harmful to the environment.

• share
• favorite_border

Blueberries get lots of media attention for their antioxidant benefits, but a new UF/IFAS study shows 60 percent of blueberry purchasers buy the fruit for its flavor.

• share
• favorite_border

Traditionally, strawberry growers spray weekly to preserve their crop. But a UF/IFAS model can help them save more than $1 million in a decade-span on an average 26-acre farm by telling them optimal times to spray.

• share
• favorite_border

Manipulating a cow’s nutrition level during the second trimester can alter the carcass composition of her offspring, according to South Dakota State University meat scientist Amanda Blair. Fetal programming is the concept that during fetus development important biological parameters can be manipulated by environmental events and these alterations can carry through to maturity. The long-term goal is to improve the quality and quantity of beef.

• share
• favorite_border

For the millions of adults and children in the U.S. who have to shun nuts to avoid an allergic reaction, help could be on the way. Scientists are now developing a way to process cashews — and potentially other nuts — that could make them safer for people who are allergic to them. They’re presenting their work at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

• share
• favorite_border

Location. Location. Location. The popular real estate mantra also is equally important to the growing of grapes and the storing of the bottles of the beverage, according to researchers. Those are just two of the many scientific subjects that will be covered in a symposium titled, “Advances in Wine Research,” at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. A new video explains these topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km3UujrPLEU. 


• share
• favorite_border

University of Iowa researchers examined how changes in rainfall amounts and an increase in the amount of acreage used to grow such crops as corn and soybeans can affect the volume of river water flow in the U.S. Midwest.

• share
• favorite_border

The world faces a small but substantially increased risk over the next two decades of a major slowdown in the growth of global corn and wheat yields because of climate change, according to NCAR and Stanford University research. Such a slowdown would occur as global demand for crops rapidly increases.

• share
• favorite_border

A decline in overall potato consumption has Texas A&M AgriLife Research breeders working on “designer” spuds that meet the time constraints and unique tastes of a younger generation.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

New research at the University of Adelaide has opened the way for the development of new lines of barley with resistance to powdery mildew.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists from the Weizmann Institute and the U.S. created a tool to analyze the environmental costs of agriculture, with the goal of determining which types of animal-based food one should eat, environmentally speaking. In the most comprehensive study of its kind, they came up with answers both expected and surprising.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) published today in the international journal Science a draft sequence of the bread wheat genome. The chromosome-based draft provides new insight into the structure, organization, and evolution of the large, complex genome of the world’s most widely grown cereal crop.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have completed a chromosome-based draft sequence of the bread wheat genome as well as the first reference sequence of chromosome 3B, the largest chromosome in wheat.

• share
• favorite_border

Drying the maximum amount of corn with the least amount of energy—that’s what engineering manager Brent Bloemendaal of Brock Grain Systems in Frankfort, Indiana, needed to give his company a competitive edge in the marketplace. To do that, he partnered with thermodynamics experts at South Dakota State University. Using an experimental setup, assistant professor Stephen Gent of the mechanical engineering department has developed and validated a numerical model that the company calls “unique and cutting edge.”

• share
• favorite_border

As government agencies recommend greater consumption of seafood for its health benefits, a new analysis led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future urges medical and public health professionals to consider the environmental and health impact of seafood sourcing, particularly aquaculture, or the farming of fish, shellfish and crustaceans. The paper appears in the July 2014 issue of the Journal of Current Environmental Health Reports.

• share
• favorite_border

It’s no secret groundwater levels have declined across the state over the past eight decades, and that the primary reason was the onset of irrigation in agriculture and population growth. But a recent Texas A&M AgriLife Research study has identified other factors having an impact.

• share
• favorite_border

“Fertigation,” drip irrigation and decentralized water treatment are new keys to a lush, green, sustainable lawn.

• share
• favorite_border

Using spider toxins to study the proteins that let nerve cells send out electrical signals, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have stumbled upon a biological tactic that may offer a new way to protect crops from insect plagues in a safe and environmentally responsible way.

• share
• favorite_border

Crape myrtle, an iconic tree in many yards around the country, has a new disease problem, researchers have found.

• share
• favorite_border

The anticipated record low wheat harvest in Kansas will affect food availability and the national economy, says a Kansas State University climatologist.

• share
• favorite_border

It can incorporate a cow’s genes or another virus into its genome. It can lead to production of a persistently infected calf that sheds the virus its entire life. Despite yearly vaccinations, one to 15 percent of a herd can test positive for bovine viral diarrhea virus. Researchers at South Dakota State University are exploring how the virus suppresses the immune system, so they can develop better modified live vaccines.

• share
• favorite_border

Australian scientists have identified the genes in wheat that control tolerance to a significant yield-limiting soil condition found around the globe – boron toxicity.

• share
• favorite_border

Old-fashioned fly swatters may be the most foolproof housefly killer, but for dairy farms, insecticides are the practical choice. Flies spread disease and a host of pathogens that cost farms hundreds of millions of dollars in annual losses. Unfortunately, with the repeated use of the same insecticides, flies develop resistance through genetic mutations that make these products less effective. Cornell entomologist Jeff Scott and colleagues analyzed levels of resistance to six insecticides in flies, and they have identified the mutations that led to resistance in houseflies and from cattle farms in nine states around the country.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists with Texas A&M AgriLife Research have found a “Trojan horse” way to deliver proteins into live human cells without damaging them. The finding, published in this month’s Nature Methods, is expected to be easily adopted for use in medical research to find cures and treatments for a wide range of diseases, according to the team’s lead scientist, Dr. Jean-Philippe Pellois, an associate professor of biochemistry at Texas A&M University.

• share
• favorite_border

Many small and medium produce growers in the United States neither have the funding nor the expertise to optimally sanitize post-harvest operations to prevent the spread of potentially dangerous pathogens, according to a panel discussion at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo® in New Orleans.

• share
• favorite_border

A father and son duo work in two very different colleges on campus, but a joint research interest demonstrates the importance of collaboration at the University of Kentucky.

• share
• favorite_border

Kansas State University veterinarian advises to start mosquito prevention methods now in order to protect yourself and your horse from West Nile virus during the heavy infection season in mid to late summer.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from NC State University have developed a technique to control populations of the Australian sheep blowfly – a major livestock pest in Australia and New Zealand – by making female flies dependent upon a common antibiotic to survive.

• share
• favorite_border

During these times of high drought and potential dust storms (or torrential rain and flash flooding), focusing on soil loss is important.

• share
• favorite_border

The Agricultural Reference Index for Drought, or ARID, used more than 100 years of climate data to reasonably predict drought levels in crops on several farms in Florida and Georgia. Scientists say its implications are far wider.

• share
• favorite_border

They normally go to landfills as waste, but grape seeds and skin are full of antioxidants, and UF/IFAS researchers used enzymes to extract the nutritious elements.

• share
• favorite_border

Kansas State University diagnosticians are helping the cattle industry save millions of dollars each year by developing earlier and accurate detection of E. coli.

• share
• favorite_border

A Kansas State University senior agricultural economist says an El Niño would help U.S. crop production, but could negatively impact worldwide production.

• share
• favorite_border

With news reports of toxic, cadmium-tainted rice in China, a new study describes a protein that transports metals in certain plants and holds promise for developing iron-rich but cadmium-free crops.