Consumers say they’ll pay more for strawberries grown in a manner that is sustainable, the research shows. Researchers defined “sustainable” as production methods that help keep the ecosystem healthy. More specifically, researchers described five sustainable practices: less fertilizer, less pesticide and fewer negative impacts on air, soil and water quality.
The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), a technology incubator and platform funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation and administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is expanding its program to advance technologies that address the interconnection of food, water and energy.
The podcast, “All in for Citrus,” will launch the last week in September and will feature short interviews with scientists working to find solutions to citrus greening and other devastating citrus diseases.
Fertilisation is a pivotal process underlying all sexual reproduction, yet its molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. Scientists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna have now identified a protein they called “Bouncer” as a crucial factor for sperm entry into the egg. Remarkably, this protein is sufficient to allow fertilization between different species. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Science.
Cornell University’s berry breeding program is releasing two new varieties, which will be available for planting in spring 2019: a strawberry, Dickens, and a raspberry, Crimson Treasure. Both varieties produce large fruits with vibrant colors that maintain peak flavor for longer than most heritage varieties.
Spiderwebs can withstand a predator’s impact while still helping catch and detect small prey. Spiders architect these lightweight networks for strength and elasticity using different silks and geometric structures. Recently, researchers unraveled a new energy absorption mechanism that explains how spiderwebs can be simultaneously sensitive and impact-resistant. The research team reports their findings in Applied Physics Letters.
The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the University of Missouri - Columbia (MU) announced today that R. Keith Slotkin, Ph.D. and Bing Yang, Ph.D., have been appointed to joint faculty positions between the Danforth Center and MU. They are the second and third faculty hired through a collaborative initiative that aims to elevate regional plant science to address global challenges.
Low crop production can grow into a national and global security issue, said Jim Anderson, director of the UF/IFAS Institute for Sustainable Food Systems.
To help meet consumer demand for more flavorful mangos without grit or fibrous flesh, University of Florida scientists will try to identify superior varieties so mango producers can choose the best types of the fruit to grow in the Sunshine State.
Findings Suggest Rootstock Choice May Be One Key to Optimizing Yields and Tree Health
Sam Hutton, an associate professor of horticultural sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, will use a new $490,000 federal grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to find ways to develop improved varieties that contain genes to help tomatoes thwart Fusarium wilt.
UF/IFAS researchers will get help from scientists at Iowa State University, the University of Wisconsin, Washington State University and the USDA to conduct the study. The grant comes from the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which is part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, an arm of the USDA.
High-efficiency identification of products of homologous recombination in plants as a tool to test gene function
In a paper published Aug. 31 in the journal Science, a team led by scientists at the University of Washington reports that insect activity in today's temperate, crop-growing regions will rise along with temperatures. Researchers project that this activity, in turn, will boost worldwide losses of rice, corn and wheat by 10-25 percent for each degree Celsius that global mean surface temperatures rise.
It’s been a good year for the winter wheat breeding program, with some experimental lines showing up to a 10 percent increase in yield over already released varieties.
The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center today announced a four-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program, titled, The Role of Meiotic-Stage Non-Coding RNA in the Modulation of Anther & Pollen Development in Grasses.
Asian pitcher plants transplanted to Massachusetts bogs can mimic the living communities of natives so well that the pitcher plant mosquito — a specialized insect that evolved to complete its life cycle exclusively in North American pitchers — lays eggs in the impostors, new research shows.
Research offers new insights for maximizing sugar production in biofuel crops.
An interdisciplinary research team at Iowa State University turned to crowdsourcing to help them design a machine-learning algorithm that could speed up the process of breeding new crop varieties with desirable traits. The recently published research focuses on identifying tassels in images of corn plants, but the work could have implications for other crops as well.
Harmful algae isn’t just a problem for high-profile bodies of water – it poses serious, toxic threats in small ponds and lakes as well, new research has found.
Life planted in soil may seem idyllic, but did you know plants get stressed? The August 22nd Sustainable, Secure Food blog explains environmental stressors for plants and research towards relief.
Soil organic carbon stocks are the amount of organic carbon found in soil. There are several common ways of measuring these stocks. Until now they were all believed to give pretty much the same results. New research shows not all tools give the same results.
In the most extensive documentation of flower-visiting orthopterans in the tropics, biologists from the National University of Singapore found that they play a potential role in pollination.
Fred Gmitter and Jude Grosser, both UF/IFAS horticultural sciences professors, base their recommendations for the latest citrus varieties to plant on their cumulative knowledge from multiple trials.
Kansas State University scientists, in collaboration with the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium, published today in the international journal Science a detailed description of the complete genome of bread wheat, the world's most widely-cultivated crop.
The reference sequence of the genome of bread wheat, the world’s most widely cultivated crop, is published, announced the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium.
An international research group, which included an ISU scientist, has proven that three proteins that can help prevent the spread of HIV can be expressed in transgenic rice plants. Using plants as a production platform could provide a cost-effective means of producing prophylactics, particularly in the developing world.
The Danforth Center and Saint Louis University are pleased to announce that Allison Miller, Ph.D., professor of biology at Saint Louis University (SLU) and research associate at the Missouri Botanical Garden, will be appointed to a joint faculty position between the Danforth Center and SLU. Miller will serve as member and principal investigator at the Danforth Center, and her research program will be housed at the Center’s Creve Coeur facilities
Researchers have found declines in the number and diversity of bird populations at nine sites surveyed in northern New Mexico, where eight species vanished over time while others had considerably dropped.
You know that smell of fresh cut grass? It's a cry for help. Plants use scent cues to protect themselves and new research has identified the use of these plant volatiles in agricultural settings.
Using best practices, in the long-term, can reduce greenhouse gases and help the environment! The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) August 15 Soils Matter blog explains how gardens and lawns can be used to store more carbon in soil.
Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles present research on a curious cosmic phenomenon known as “whistlers” -- very low frequency packets of radio waves that race along magnetic field lines. Appearing in the Physics of Plasmas, the study provides new insights into the nature of whistlers and space plasmas and could one day aid in the development of practical plasma technologies with magnetic fields, including spacecraft thrusters that use charged particles as fuel.
Through funding from the state legislature-funded Citrus Initiative, Tripti Vashisth has found that leaves from greening-affected trees often show deficiencies in certain nutrients such as manganese, zinc, iron and more. This suggests that, because of greening, more of these are required and are critical for diseased plants’ survival.
Beginning this week, Florida citrus growers will have an updated resource to help them keep groves productive despite the ever-present threat of Huanglongbing, the bacterial malady also known as HLB or citrus greening disease.
With over 2,700 recorded trees, Salisbury University is comprised of some of the most horticulturally diverse grounds in its region. SU recently became the first in Maryland to receive Level III accreditation from the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and the Morton Register of Arboreta.
Some chemicals used to speed up the breakdown of plants for production of biofuels like ethanol are poison to the yeasts that turn the plant sugars into fuel. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and several Department of Energy laboratories have identified two changes to a single gene that can make the yeast tolerate the pretreatment chemicals.
To root out the scientific complexities between nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria and its close alliance with plants, the National Science Foundation has awarded a $1.1 million Dimensions of Biodiversity grant to the Cornell University-affiliated Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI). Unlocking the genetic and ecological detail behind this symbiotic relationship may help reduce agricultural dependence on synthetic fertilizer.
In addition to antibiotic injections, scientists are trying to find the insect that transmits lethal bronzing to the trees. Bahder and his research team have been surveying symptomatic palms for about a year and so far, they’ve narrowed the list to two potential insects as possible conveyors of lethal bronzing.
Officials from UCI and the Irvine Ranch Water District are hosting a celebration of UCI’s renovated Central Plant, which has been retrofitted to use recycled water for cooling campus buildings.
Northern Arizona University ecologist Andrew Richardson used PhenoCam, a network of automated digital cameras, to track this unusual effect of climate change.
A study in Nature revealed that turning up the heat accelerates spring greening in vegetation and delays fall color change. The research team measured plant greenness over three years at the SPRUCE study, a unique ecosystem-scale experiment operated by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Fernando Alferez, an assistant professor of horticultural sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, leads a team of UF/IFAS researchers studying the effects of Homobrassinolides (HBr), a type of plant hormone, on greening-infected citrus trees.
Seed banks are an important part of food security. The August 7th Sustainable, Secure Food blog explains how preserving plant diversity protects the world-wide food supply, both now and in the future.
New research has discovered a previously unknown mechanism for controlling cellular decisions, one which combines an on-and-off switch in a single protein, either promoting or preventing the transition to flowering in plants.
From nutritional supplements to managing irrigation to grower outreach and education, UF/IFAS researchers are finding additional ways to support Florida citrus growers in their fight against citrus greening disease. Twelve projects were funded by the state legislature-funded Citrus Initiative program in 2017-2018 that looked at possible short- and long-term solutions that growers might implement now, that could impact fruit growth, reduce production costs and result in more HLB-tolerant trees.
Researchers have identified details of how certain plants scavenge and accumulate pollutants in contaminated soil. Their work revealed that plant roots effectively “lock up” toxic arsenic found loose in mine tailings—piles of crushed rock, fluid, and soil left behind after the extraction of minerals and metals.
Heads’ up! Did you know that researchers have also found soils in the trees above our heads? The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) August 1 Soils Matter blog explains how these unique soils form and the role they play in their ecosystems.
The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy and the UIC/National Institutes of Health Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements Research will host an open-to-the-public garden walk and lecture to celebrate the first and only urban medicinal plant garden in Chicago.
Iowa State University researchers have received a grant to study how well the perennial grass miscanthus performs in low-lying areas of agricultural fields that are prone to flooding. The research has the potential to identify more efficient uses of such land while also providing environmental benefits.
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