Weed Scientists Must Learn How to Communicate New Methods to Farmers
Allen Press PublishingCommunication is essential to any relationship—including that between weed scientists and farmers.
Communication is essential to any relationship—including that between weed scientists and farmers.
Nature’s capacity to store carbon, the element at the heart of global climate woes, is steadily eroding as the world’s farmers expand croplands at the expense of native ecosystem such as forests. A group of universities is releasing a study on the topic.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced $43,809 in funding for South Dakota State University to plan for the development of a sustainable organic tribal bison production system.
Agronomists, Crop and Soil Scientists Convene in Long Beach Oct. 31-Nov. 3 to Discuss Agriculture and Environmental Sustainability.
Copper sulfate has emerged as an effective treatment for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, also known as “Ich,” a protozoan parasite that appears as white spots on infected fish, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist.
A Cornell University-led team of industry and academic researchers is launching an effort to develop a $100 million broccoli industry on the East Coast over the next 10 years – a move that could reduce fuel costs, cut carbon dioxide emissions from cross-country trucks and save water in the western United States.
A case study published in the 2010 Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education by professors at Washington State University studies the challenges one organization faced in maintaining an urban market garden.
A Creighton University School of Medicine researcher has been awarded a $2.7 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate a possible link between the ingestion of tortillas and corn-based food products contaminated with a fungal toxin and increased risk for birth defects.
Researchers at the University of Florida have published a report regarding the trends in water quality feeding into Everglades National Park. The report can be found in the September-October 2010 Journal of Environmental Quality.
Iowa State's Jacob Petrich and his collaborators have discovered that the eyes of sheep infected with scrapie return an intense glow when they're hit with blue light. That suggests tests can be developed to quickly find mad cow and other diseases.
Scientists at the University of Adelaide have discovered new cases of herbicide resistance in annual ryegrass, one of the world's most serious and costly weeds.
Climate change in the Prairie Pothole Region poses problems for wetland-dependent organisms such as ducks, but farmers could help ease the impact by the way they farm.
Forget all the tacky jokes about cow flatulence causing climate change. A new study reports that the dairy industry is responsible for only about 2.0 percent of all US greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers may have a greater understanding of the mysterious colony collapse disorder.
A group of agricultural scientists reported in today’s issue of the journal Science that corn that has been genetically engineered to produce insect-killing proteins isolated from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) provides significant economic benefits even to neighboring farmers who grow non-transgenic varieties of corn.
Widespread planting of genetically modified Bt corn throughout the Upper Midwest has suppressed populations of the European corn borer, a major insect pest of corn, with the majority of the economic benefits going to growers who do not plant Bt corn, reports a multistate team of scientists in the Oct. 8 edition of the journal Science.
Invasive Plant Science and Management – The only thing worse than an invasive weed that’s hard to get rid of is a hybrid of that weed that’s nearly impossible to eradicate. When two plant species contribute to a hybrid, new capabilities for invasion can also be created. Recently formed plant hybrids have been shown to spread rapidly.
Some fisheries in the United States are poised to undergo major changes in the regulations used to protect fish stocks, and Quinn Weninger and Rajesh Singh have estimated that the new system will be an economic boon to the fishing industry. The two estimated harvesting costs under the old system and compared that to the newly proposed fishing regulations that lift many restrictions that cause inefficiency while still limiting amounts to be harvested.
Nathan Pelletier and Peter Tyedmers of the Dalhousie University School for Resource and Environmental Studies have released a paper focusing on the environmental implications of the livestock industry. The paper illustrates a number of worrying statistics that call into question the sustainability of the livestock industry. If we continue to increase our consumption of livestock, we will fatally impact our environment on a local and global scale.
As the century warms, tropical forests will be at risk from many threats, especially conversion to cropland to sustain the population. A new report shows that crop productivity improvements and carbon emission limits together could prevent widespread tropical deforestation over the next 100 years.
In Spain, tomato growers are seeking effective ways to keep their crops weed-free as government regulation limits the use of formerly favored herbicides and plastics. Hand-weeding is not economically viable, and herbicides are limited to nine active ingredients that do not have the desired effect on some weeds. Therefore, mulching has become the weed control choice of many farmers.
How could climate change and our response to it affect the Great Lakes' water quality? That's the primary question a team of 27 researchers from across the University of Michigan and collaborators at other institutions will answer with a new $5-million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Spoilage bacteria that can cause red coloration of pickles' skin during fermentation may actually help clean up dyes in textile industry wastewater, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study.
USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack made the following statements after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Dr. Hagen as Under Secretary for Food Safety, and Dr. Woteki as Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics.
More than 220 international scientists will meet at a conference in Adelaide, Australia next week (19-24 September) to discuss the biology of plant membranes, an understanding of which is crucial to developing crops that will feed us into the future.
A first draft of the cacao genome is complete, a consortium of academic, governmental, and industry scientists announced today. Indiana University Bloomington scientists performed much of the sequencing work, which is described and detailed at http://www.cacaogenomedb.org/, the official website of the Cacao Genome Database project.
A newly formed partnership will enable Kansas State University to help rural communities identify ways to adjust to future climate scenarios that may affect their families and livelihoods.
Scientists find low levels of bacteria in fields sprayed with swine manure
Without irrigation, early-planted cotton fails to achieve yield improvements.
A historical perspective and glimpse of the future of one scientific society’s role in world agronomy.
Students have built two 10X10-foot air-conditioned walk-in packing sheds on the university farm that will keep produce fresh for market.
As fat summer tomatoes dangle in profusion from vines in gardens and farms across the country, researchers at Wake Forest University are looking for a way to make future harvests hold up better against drought or lack of nutrients.
More than 100 years after an explorer first brought yellow-flowered alfalfa from Siberia to North America, South Dakota State University scientists are exploring one of his century-old ideas: use yellow-flowered alfalfa to boost the nutrition in semiarid grasslands.
A team of scientists from USDA and a cooperating company are working to make corn-derived plastics more heat tolerant—research that may broaden the range of applications for which these plastics could be used as an alternative to petroleum-based plastics.
Genetic diversity in lima beans is sharply reduced from wild populations
Tests of the potential vaccine against “Ich” ― the dreaded “white-spot” disease that plagues fish in commercial fish farms, public aquariums, pet fish retail outlets and home aquariums ― are raising hopes for finally controlling the disease, scientists reported here today at the 240th national Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Proponents of organic farming often speak of nature's balance in ways that sound almost spiritual, prompting criticism that their views are unscientific and naïve. At the other end of the spectrum are those who see farms as battlefields where insect pests and plant diseases must be vanquished with the magic bullets of modern agriculture: pesticides, fungicides and the like.
Health conscious consumers who hesitate at the price of fresh blueberries and blackberries, fruits renowned for high levels of healthful antioxidants, now have an economical alternative. It is black rice, one variety of which got the moniker “Forbidden Rice” in ancient China because nobles commandeered every grain for themselves and forbade the common people from eating it. Scientists will present the study at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
Scientists at the 240th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition today described development and successful initial tests on a substance that acts as a sunscreen for the microscopic spores of a fungus, brightening prospects for wider use of the fungus as a means of wiping out insect pests that attack food crops.
Blood hounds may soon have a new partner ― disease detector dogs ― thanks to an unusual experiment in which scientists trained mice to identify feces of ducks infected with bird flu. Reported at the American Chemical Society’s 240th National Meeting, the study may pave the way for development of biosensors-on-four-feet that warn of infection with influenza and other diseases.
Many pharmaceuticals have a lot in common with herbicides. In fact, for years most pharmaceutical companies had accompanying agrochemical divisions. When particular biological functions are targeted by a chemical compound, it could apply both to humans and to plants, as in the case of a fungicide. A compound developed as a pharmaceutical has at times found a better use as an herbicide or pesticide, and vice versa.
In a study that promises to fill in the fine details of the plant world's blueprint for surviving drought, a team of Wisconsin researchers has identified in living plants the set of proteins that help them withstand water stress.
Scientists today reported the first evidence that eating blueberries, strawberries, and acai berries may help the aging brain stay healthy in a crucial but previously unrecognized way. Their study, presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), concluded that berries, and possibly walnuts, activate the brain’s natural “housekeeper” mechanism, which cleans up and recycles toxic proteins linked to age-related memory loss and other mental decline.
Scientists develop framework to monitor second-generation transgenic crops.
Scientists in Japan are busy zapping potatoes and, as a result, the fifth most popular food consumed around the world may one day become an even more healthful vegetable. The researchers reported their results at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) being held here this week.
Reducing the runoff from plant nutrients that can eventually wash into the Chesapeake Bay could someday be as easy as checking the weather forecast, thanks in part to work by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.
Have wheat breeders reached the maximum potential for grain yield?
Arsenic in food supplements passes through chickens, then passes through the field.
Web-based tool helps farmers reduce greenhouse gas losses and gain economic advantage.
Scientists at the University of Arkansas and their colleagues have found populations of wild plants with genes from genetically modified canola in the United States.