An international review led by the University of Queensland and WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) says that many native carnivores that live in and around human habitation are declining at an unprecedented rate – spelling bad news for humans who indirectly rely on them for a variety of beneficial services.
West Virginia University biologist Jonathan Cumming is studying willow and poplar trees by analyzing their differential sensitivity to soils that are left behind after mining.
Pharmaceuticals and other man-made contaminants are forcing fish that live downstream from a typical sewage treatment plant to work at least 30 per cent harder just to survive, McMaster researchers have found.
A bedding system new to Texas – hügelkultur – is trending among home gardeners looking for low-maintenance ways to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables, said Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service horticulturist Dr. Joe Masabni.
A new program uses Landsat satellite data to automatically differentiate land cover into 16 categories in 30-meter resolution— and does so more accurately than other land cover products.
A new study integrating data from around the globe has shown that honey bees are the world’s most important single species of pollinator in natural ecosystems and a key contributor to natural ecosystem functions. The report weaves together information from 80 plant-pollinator interaction networks.
The future of weeding is here, and it comes in the form of a robot. Specialty crops such as lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, and onions may be the first to benefit.
From U.S. Navy laboratories to battlefields in Afghanistan, researchers are lining up to explore the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to detect unexploded landmines. At Missouri University of Science and Technology, civil engineering doctoral student Paul Manley is enlisting a third variable —plant health — to see if drones can be used to more safely locate such weapons of destruction.
A University of Rhode Island scientist who studies the invasive plant Phragmites was part of an international research team that found that the most significant factor in determining whether a plant will become invasive is the size of its genome.
The Eveland laboratory’s research findings, “Brassinosteroids modulate meristem fate and differentiation of unique inflorescence morphology in Setaria viridis”, were recently published in the journal The Plant Cell.
Using satellite imaging and drone reconnaissance, archaeologists from Washington University in St. Louis have discovered an ancient irrigation system that allowed a farming community in arid northwestern China to raise livestock and cultivate crops in one of the world’s driest desert climates.Lost for centuries in the barren foothills of China’s Tian Shan Mountains, the ancient farming community remains hidden in plain sight — appearing little more than an odd scattering of round boulders and sandy ruts when viewed from the ground.
Understanding dodder’s covert communications weaponry system, which operates much like a computer virus, could provide researchers with a method to engineer parasite-resistant plants.
In the U.S., alfalfa is grown mainly in western and northern states. The cold winters and other factors can lead to losses for farmers and forage shortages. Researchers have identified annual forage crops that can be cultivated in fields with winter-killed or terminated alfalfa.
Grazing animals, such as cattle and sheep, should eat their legumes and brassicas. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) January 1 Soils Matter blog post explains how a variety of forage grasses benefits these animals as well as the soil and environment.
Middle Tennessee State University researchers will use the grant to experiment with ginseng. The effort is expected to improve farmers’ income across the state and conserve wild ginseng, which is considered an endangered species, in Tennessee.
A pan-genome is a valuable resource for unlocking natural diversity. Having plant pan-genomes for crops important for fuel and food applications would enable breeders to harness natural diversity to improve traits such as yield, disease resistance, and tolerance of marginal growing conditions.
Plants don’t sleep like humans do—but just like some people don’t rest well in the heat, some plants don’t either. The canola plant isn’t as productive if the temperature is high at nighttime, and scientists are trying to find out why.
The combined effects of pesticides and a lack of nutrition form a deadly one-two punch for animals, new research shows for the first time. Researchers studied how honey bees fared with exposure to pesticides and limited nutrient sources, scenarios found in agricultural areas.
Data on soils, crop and livestock performance and environmental parameters, such as greenhouse gas emissions, will help convince producers to try cover crops in their rotation plans.
In Nature Genetics, a team led by JGI researchers assembled a catalog of bacterial genomes to identify and characterize candidate genes that aid bacteria in adapting to plant environments, specifically genes involved in bacterial root colonization.
The latest resupply mission to the International Space Station delivered hundreds of seeds to the spacefaring research lab Sunday, Dec. 17, to test how plants grow in the stressful environment of zero gravity. This is the fourth plants-in-space experiment for University of Wisconsin–Madison Professor of Botany Simon Gilroy.
“From what I’ve seen, we’ve got some reasonably tolerant scion/rootstock combinations that growers should be taking a look at as short-term solutions to living with greening until true HLB-resistant trees are developed,” said Michael Rogers, director of the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center.
Tulane University awarded the $1 million grand prize for the Tulane Nitrogen Reduction Challenge to Adapt-N, a team from Cornell University that developed a cloud-based computer modeling system to predict optimum nitrogen application rates for crops using data on weather, field conditions and soil management practices.
Farmers in the Northeast are adapting to longer growing seasons and warming climate conditions, but they may face spring-planting whiplash as they confront fields increasingly saturated with rain, according to a research paper published in the journal Climatic Change.
Evolutionary bottlenecks brought on by domestication have caused the genome of corn to retain harmful mutations over the course of millennia, according to a new study from an Iowa State University scientist. The study takes a journey through the past by studying genetic changes in corn.
The 2009 film “Avatar” created a lush imaginary world, illuminated by magical, glowing plants. Now researchers are starting to bring this spellbinding vision to life to help reduce our dependence on artificial lighting. They report in ACS’ journal Nano Letters a way to infuse plants with the luminescence of fireflies.
Sweet sorghum is not just for breakfast anymore. Although sorghum is a source for table syrup, scientists see a future in which we convert sorghum to biofuel, rather than relying on fossil fuel.
As the August 21 eclipse approached, researchers prepared to understand plants' response to light and temperature. The varied results have left the researchers with interesting questions.
The grounds of University House, the official residence of the Bowling Green State University president, include a large, manicured lawn. But behind the green lawn is an equally important but less obviously tended space, a short-grass prairie that the University is carefully returning to its native state.
In sports, sometimes a player has to take one for the team. The same appears to be true in the plant world, where reduced individual growth can benefit the broader community.
Soil microbes work as both decomposers and synthesizers of carbon compounds in soil, offering new answers with impacts to crops and eco-health.
Researchers in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University are leading a multi-year project aimed at bringing malting barley back to New York and helping farmers take advantage of the economic opportunities offered by the crop.
A system known as Citrus Under Protective Screen (CUPS) could be crucial to Florida growers, UF/IFAS researchers say.
Ice storms can wreak havoc on communities. Frozen limbs, dragged down by the weight of the ice, can snap off and fall on cars, homes, and power lines. But scientists aren’t sure how ice storms affect long-term forest health. Researchers are changing that.
A reindeer with a red glowing nose. A heart, two sizes two small, that suddenly grows three sizes. A trip to the past and to the future — all in one night. Researchers dug deep into their reserves of scientific expertise to explain how these inexplicable plot lines in holiday classics just might be (almost) possible:
It’s one thing to offer students fruits and vegetables for school lunch; it’s another for them to actually eat them. Children who attend schools with Farm to School programs eat more fruits and vegetables, new University of Florida research shows.
A team of researchers from Environment Canada and Climate Change Canada and McMaster University have found that fish living downstream from a wastewater treatment plant showed changes to their normal behaviour—ones that made them vulnerable to predators—when exposed to elevated levels of antidepressant drugs in the water.
Cornell University engineering students are creating a state-of-the-art computer model to strategically place trees on highways near residential areas to mitigate pollution particles and improve human health.
The 1,000-page, 21-chapter book begins with the history of plant propagation and then leads into the principles and practices of seed, vegetative and tissue culture propagation.
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have identified a common set of genes that enable different drought-resistant plants to survive in semi-arid conditions, which could play a significant role in bioengineering and creating energy crops that are tolerant to water deficits.
The Giant Sequoya? Nope. The African elephant? Not even close. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) December 1 Soils Matter blog post shares that the largest land organism is—a fungus!
Efforts to battle an invasive forest pest just got a boost from a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation grant that enables Cornell Botanic Gardens to continue – and expand – its work to conserve hemlock trees
The tool, known as the Strawberry Advisory System (StAS) uses data such as temperature and leaf wetness to tell growers when to spray fungicide to thwart botrytis and anthracnose fruit rots.
Published recently in the peer-reviewed academic journal Nature Communications, the findings show periodically flooded soils may actually lose organic matter at accelerated rates.
A recent discovery by Australian scientists is likely to improve the sustainability of the Australian wine sector and significantly accelerate the breeding of more robust salt-tolerant grapevines.
First domesticated 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, wheat and barley took vastly different routes to China, with barley switching from a winter to both a winter and summer crop during a thousand-year detour along the southern Tibetan Plateau, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis,
Incorporating a combination of genes from the model plant Arabidopsis may build high levels of resistance to sudden death syndrome in soybeans, according to research from an Iowa State University agronomist. A recently published study points to one gene in particular as a likely candidate to bolster resistance.
University of Florida, citrus growers to celebrate a 100-year partnership.
Pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses or fungi, cause harmful plant disease and often lead to the destruction of agricultural fields. With many possible dispersal methods, it can often be difficult to assess the damage of a pathogen’s impact before it’s too late. At the 70th meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, Nov. 19-21, researchers from Virginia Tech will present their work on rain drop dispersal mechanisms of rust fungus on wheat plants.
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