Feature Channels: Agriculture

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Sustainable agriculture will not be achieved by one universal solution.

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A new project backed by Cornell University and the USDA will explore the economic benefits of grazing sheep under industrial-scale solar arrays.

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Research shows sunn hemp can successfully grow and produce nutritious forage in Northern High Plains

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A Cornell University-led national network of scientists and farmers is developing new varieties of cover crops that are better adapted to local regions and stressors – changes that could carry a bevy of long-term and sustainable benefits for organic growers.

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Researchers have identified how iron deficient plants protect themselves from damaging light, according to a Dartmouth study.

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Fraudulent practices in food production, especially false claims of geographical origin, cause billions of dollars in economic damage every year.

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AgTech NEXT 2021 CLIMATE CHANGE: Seeing Things Differently, will continue on November 18, at 1PM CST featuring a keynote address by Joe Cornelius, PhD, CEO, Gates Ag One.

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Coffee, that savior of the underslept, comes with enormous environmental and social costs, from the loss of forest habitats as woodlands are converted to crops, to the economic precarity of small-scale farmers whose livelihoods depend on the whims of international markets.

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The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) in Abuja, Nigeria, for cooperation in seed certification molecular technologies and support to the national biotechnology strategy.

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Iowa State University scientists are leading a multi-institutional effort to reimagine cover crops by using perennial groundcovers. They hope the effort will lead to wider adoption of perennial groundcovers in order to protect the environment and benefit crop production. The researchers recently received a $10 million grant to support their work.

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Superhero of the plant work is a powerful solution to challenges

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The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center has won a $1.5 million competitive Build to Scale grant from the US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA) to support the Center for AgTech and Applied Location Science and Technology (CATALST).

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Scientists are figuring out what makes soils healthy, with big implications for the environment and agriculture

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Iowa State University scientists are leading an effort to improve efficiency and genetics in organic corn production. Most seeds bred for growing corn are suited to conventional agricultural systems, not organic. The researchers will create proof-of-concept corn varieties specifically for organic production, a fast-growing sector of the agricultural world.

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In January 2021, Empa and BASE (Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy) were among the winners of the prestigious Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge by data.org, a platform for partnerships committed to build the field of data science for social impact. In their project, the team is developing a mobile app that aims to give smallholder farmers in rural India advice on how to better store their fresh foods and when to sell them. Eight months into the project, the team has forged partnerships with cooling solution providers, collected open-source data for India, and developed digital food twins.

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UC San Diego chemists have developed a technology for monitoring the health of algae crops, one of world’s most promising sources for sustainable products being developed to counter global issues stemming from fossil fuel pollutants and product waste.

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A UO biologist and former UO postdoctoral fellow have looked for ways to incentivize almond growers to adopt bee-friendly practices, such as planting cover crops, adopting permanent pollinator habitat and adopting best management practices for bees.

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A new online course on resilience in agriculture provides agricultural professionals from across the globe with cutting-edge insights into one of the most critical interdisciplinary topics in crop improvement.

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Both frozen carbon dioxide and organic matter are important forms of soil carbon

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A new partnership revealing the genetic secrets hidden in 7,000 grapevines are yielding clues that could make the U.S. grape industry more resilient and deliver new kinds of grapes to benefit growers and consumers alike.

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Lisa Schulte Moore, a professor of natural resource ecology and management at Iowa State University, has been named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow for her groundbreaking research as a landscape ecologist building more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems. The prestigious awards, sometimes called “genius grants,” identify scientists, artists, entrepreneurs and others who have demonstrated exceptional creativity and who show promise for important future advances.

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Food manufacturers can now enter data on the safe, live microbes in their products into a global database with an eye towards building the evidence to support a recommended amount for the diet.

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A team co-led by a Washington State University scientist offers an alternative way to understand and minimize health impacts from human-caused changes to the climate and environment in a new study published in the journal One Earth.

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Rangelands in the Great Plains, and the ranchers who depend on them, are losing battles against an invasion of brush and shrubs on historical grasslands.

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Nectar-feeding bats foraging in intensively managed banana plantations in Costa Rica have a less diverse set of gut microbes in comparison to bats feeding in their natural forest habitat or organic plantations, reveals new research published today in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

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Crop wild relatives of beans topic of blog, celebrated yearly by crop society

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For the first time, researchers have developed a communication model to provide a variety of Florida’s agencies with a statewide strategic infrastructure. The model also includes recommendations on how to streamline the process of providing red tide information to users in varying formats.

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Natural resistance to potato pest can increase yield of America’s favorite vegetable

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Finding a way to reduce metric tons of carbon dioxide while sustaining food products to feed the country and the world is becoming an area of increased focus in national decarbonization efforts and is attracting increased attention at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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Storing greater amounts of water in Brazil’s reservoirs could increase precipitation and river flow, alleviating the water and energy supply crisis in Brazil.

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In agriculture, large quantities of nano- and microplastics end up in the soil through compost, sewage sludge and the use of mulching foils. The plastic particles always carry various pollutants with them. However, they do not transport them into the groundwater, as is often assumed. Environmental geoscientists led by Thilo Hofmann have now determined that the plastic particles release the pollutants in the upper soil layers: they do not generally contaminate the groundwater, but have a negative effect on soil microbes and crops. The study by the University of Vienna appears in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

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In powerful testimony to members of the United States Congress today, Stephen Ritz, acclaimed teacher, founder of Green Bronx Machine and best-selling author of The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools, made the case for public schools’ role in ending hunger and improving health and nutrition in America.

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Phosphorus, a critical nutrient for crops, is inefficient and causes growth of harmful algae in water systems

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Closing food and nutrient loops within cities benefits several facets of city life

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Stephen Ritz, acclaimed teacher, founder of Green Bronx Machine and best-selling author of The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools, has been invited by United States Congressman James P. McGovern (MA-02), Chairman of the House Rules Committee, to testify before Congress on the role of schools in ending hunger and improving nutrition. Ritz will testify on Wednesday, September 15 at 11:00 a.m. His testimony can be viewed live at: https://youtu.be/AoB13ifdO6I.

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Researchers are developing a robot that utilizes deep learning to automate certain aspects of the peach cultivation process, which could be a boon for many Georgia peach farms grappling with a shortage of workers. The self-navigating robot uses an embedded 3D camera to determine which trees need to be pruned or thinned, and removes the branches or peaches using a claw-like device attached to its arm.

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Researchers at the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative have established a five-year, $6.2 million collaboration with Dr. Nadia Shakoor and her team at the Danforth Center to identify and develop sorghum plants that can better capture and store atmospheric carbon.

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An international team of researchers explored the possible effects that current nitrogen related mitigation options could have on reconciling regional food security and environmental targets for nitrogen.

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The new Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems, or CROPPS, funded by a five-year, $25 million National Science Foundation grant, aims to grow a new field called digital biology.

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An international team of researchers led by the University of New Hampshire has sequenced the shea tree’s genome, providing a valuable resource for the strategic development of the species which is best known for the popular product shea butter—a multimillion-dollar ingredient used in cosmetics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals and chocolate.