Feature Channels: Agriculture

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

University of Adelaide researchers have compiled statistics from 44 countries to develop the first database of the world's winegrape varieties and regions.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Using the largest dated evolutionary tree of flowering plants ever assembled, a new study suggests how plants developed traits to withstand low temperatures, with implications that human-induced climate change may pose a bigger threat than initially thought to plants and global agriculture.

• share
• favorite_border

Yields of rice, wheat and corn appear to have maxed out on 30 percent of the world's agricultural croplands, according to a University of Nebraska-Lincoln study published in Nature Communications.

• share
• favorite_border

A new analysis combining climate, agricultural, and hydrological models finds that shortages of freshwater used for irrigation could double the detrimental effects of climate change on agriculture.

• share
• favorite_border

UF Professor Dean Gabriel and colleagues have mapped a new strain of the citrus greening genome in Brazil.

• share
• favorite_border

Today, December 12, JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, has published an environmental research technique that could turn the age-old task of watering crops into an exact science.

• share
• favorite_border

UF researchers say salmonella is more likely to spread on tomatoes only with certain tomato types and drier weather, and that's a key to curbing produce-associated outbreaks.

• share
• favorite_border

Grant will help professor research how to grow more peanut varieties that are drougt-tolerant.

• share
• favorite_border

A review of scientific studies show that sea-level rise and shoreline retreat will drive an increase in future flood risk from hurricanes.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Study uses patient-derived stem cells to show that a mutation in the α-synuclein gene causes increased vulnerability to pesticides, leading to Parkinson’s disease.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Green muscle disease is a degenerative condition of broiler chickens’ minor pectoral muscles, or tenders, that causes the muscle tissue to bruise. The discolored tissue is not discovered until processing and deboning, and then it must be trimmed and discarded, costing the U.S. poultry industry an estimated $50 million a year in losses. After more than a decade of research a team of poultry scientists at Auburn University has identified a blood enzyme that could give breeders a noninvasive tool to screen birds for susceptibility to the disease.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

On November 8th, JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, will introduce a new technique to aid in the development of defenses against diseases threatening food crops worldwide.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

University of Florida researchers find old bulbs work almost as well as newer ones in helping zap bugs. This saves millions of dollars and more mercury from entering waste stream.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

As drylands of the world become even drier, water will not be the only resource in short supply. Levels of nutrients in the soil will likely be affected, and their imbalance could affect the lives of one-fifth of the world’s population.

• share
• favorite_border

Nitrogen and phosphorus export must be reduced via interdisciplinary cooperation

• share
• favorite_border

An emerging swine virus, deadly to piglets, was first recognized in the United States in May. Researchers at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine have determined the evolution of the virus, which has already spread to at least 17 states.

• share
• favorite_border

Throughout his 43-year career, Cornell University plant breeder Ronnie Coffman has sown seeds of scientific and social change across continents and generations. Now his efforts are being recognized with the inaugural World Agriculture Prize, awarded by the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA), an organization that represents more than 600 universities worldwide.

• share
• favorite_border

Interdisciplinary standards needed for studying antibiotic resistance

• share
• favorite_border

Cornell University researchers have developed a microfluidic water sensor within a fingertip-sized silicon chip that is a hundred times more sensitive than current devices. The researchers are now completing soil tests and will soon test their design in plants, embedding their “lab on a chip” in the stems of grape vines, for example. They hope to mass produce the sensors for as little as $5 each. The new sensor will benefit crop growers, wine grape and other fruit growers, food processors and even concrete makers.

• share
• favorite_border

Increasing organic content, improving soil structure, important to urban growers

• share
• favorite_border

To most people, restoration of Florida’s Everglades means recovering and protecting the wetlands of south Florida. What many don’t realize is how intimately the fortunes of the southern Everglades are tied to central Florida’s Lake Okeechobee and lands even further north. Restoration of this northern Everglades ecosystem will be discussed at the ASA, CSSA, and SSSA Annual Meetings on Nov. 3-6 in Tampa, FL.

• share
• favorite_border

The global wheat industry sometimes loses as much as $1 billion a year because prolonged rainfall and high humidity contribute to grains germinating before they are fully mature. This phenomenon, known as pre-harvest sprouting or PHS, has such important economic repercussions for farmers around the world that scientists have been working on finding a solution to the problem for at least a couple of decades. Findings by a McGill team now suggest that the solution may lie not with genetics alone, but rather with a combination of genetic and epigenetic factors.

• share
• favorite_border

Mississippi has the dubious honor of having more documented glyphosate-resistant weed species than any other state. Mississippi State University scientists are leading the charge in the fight against glyphosate-resistant Italian ryegrass with a research-based plan of attack.

• share
• favorite_border

Mississippi State University researchers and Extension Service professionals are addressing the complex challenges of preserving the state’s water supply through several studies and outreach initiatives.

• share
• favorite_border

With limited water and an increasing number of people depending on it, water security is tenuous. But integrated water management plans using “blue,” “green,” and “gray” water can increase water security. At the annual meetings of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America on Nov. 3-6, 2013, speakers will address what those colors mean and why those waters are vital.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

As more and more people recognize the importance of the wild relatives of crop plants to agriculture and food security, interest in cataloging and conserving these plants is building around the world. At the annual meetings of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America on Nov. 3-6, 2013, two speakers will describe the latest efforts to identify and protect the wild relatives of domesticated crop plants both in the United States and abroad.

• share
• favorite_border

Locust swarms may seem like a distant chapter from history, but these devastating insects still present a major threat in today’s world. A team of scientists from Arizona State, Colorado State, McGill and Yale universities are launching a new collaborative project to learn how human behavior, market forces and ecological systems interact over time to affect the outcomes of locust swarms.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

The Brown Revolution-rebuilding soil ecology-is helping farmers feed communities. The methods restore land depleted from overuse, and are easily replicated in various geographic areas.

• share
• favorite_border

Antibiotic resistant (ABR) pathogens are an emerging, critical human health issue. ABR has been found in soils dating back for millennia. Current research illustrates the need for considering natural, background resistance in soils in any scientific study examining the effects of antibiotics on the environment.

• share
• favorite_border

Nationwide, thousands are sickened—some seriously—and many die after consuming mushrooms they picked in the wild that they did not know were poisonous. Rutgers experts explain how to keep people and animals safe.

• share
• favorite_border

Policymakers need to rethink the idea of promoting biofuels to protect the climate because the methods used to justify such policies are inherently flawed, according to a University of Michigan energy researcher.

• share
• favorite_border

Rice containing an overactive gene that makes it resistant to a common herbicide can pass that genetic trait to weedy rice, prompting powerful growth even without a weed-killer to trigger the modification benefit, new research shows.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from Virginia Tech, the Georg-August University of Gottingen, Germany, and the Jackson Laboratory of Bar Harbor, Maine, have used a special type of microscope to discover how “check valves” in wood cells control sap flow and protect trees when they are injured.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

In light of their many benefits, urban gardens are popping up across the nation. But the challenges growers face must be understood and addressed if urban gardens are to become widespread and even profitable.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers with Virginia Tech and the University of Florida undertook a study of diarrheal disease outbreaks in Botswana that relied only on the use of a simple questionnaire and existing hospital staff and infrastructure.

• share
• favorite_border

Some wild clones of social amoebas farm the bacteria they eat, but this is a losing strategy if nonfarming amoebas can steal the farmers’ crops. To make the strategy work, the farmers also carry bacteria that secrete chemicals that poison free riders. The work suggest farming is complex evolutionary adaptation that requires additional strategies, such as recruiting third parties, to effectively defend and privatize the crops, the Washington University in St. Louis scientists say.

• share
• favorite_border

The scientists responsible for four inventions that affect the lives of millions of people around the globe will be inducted into the highly prized scientific “Hall of Fame” today as the latest Heroes of Chemistry chosen by the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.