Feature Channels: Plants

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This good news comes as Florida growers head into the heart of blueberry season.

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Can organic growers fight weeds and increase soil health? To grow crops organically, farmers fight weeds with chemical-free weapons. But it takes heavy tractors to efficiently turn soil and rip out weeds, compressing the soil. And after a field is turned, heavy rains and wind can erode the exposed soil. Researchers are working to get the best of both worlds.

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An insect infestation that is killing hemlock trees in New England forests is having a significant impact on the water resources of forested ecosystems that provide essential water supplies to one of the nation's most populous regions.

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A hardy perennial is a promising source of biofuel, and a UW-Milwaukee scientist is developing a technique to make a GMO version that cannot "infect" the genes of natural plants around it.

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We tend to assume that domestication is a one-way street and that, once domesticated, crop plants stay domesticated. A new study of rice shows, however, that different methods of farming change the evolutionary pressures on crop plants, and the plants easily "de-domesticate," evolving to take advantage of these opportunities.

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In the second half of the 20th century, the mass use of fertilizer was part of an agricultural boom called the “green revolution” that was largely credited with averting a global food crisis.

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Scientists from WCS have discovered a new species of wild ginger, spicing up a wave of recent wildlife discoveries in the Kabobo Massif – a rugged, mountainous region in Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Tiny strands of fungi weave through the roots of an estimated nine out of 10 plants on Earth, an underground symbiosis in which the plant gives the fungus pre-made sugars and the fungus sends the plant basic nutrients in return. Scientists are interested in enhancing this mechanism as a way to help plants grow on nutrient-poor lands.

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A four-year study of one rare and one common lupine growing in coastal dunes showed that a native mouse steals most of the rare lupines seeds while they are still attached to the plant. The mouse is a "subsidized species," given cover for nocturnal forays by European beachgrass, originally planted to stabilize the dunes.

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Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are using the decellularized husks of plants such as parsley, vanilla and orchids to form three-dimensional scaffolds that can then be primed and seeded with human stem cells to optimize their growth in the lab dish and, ultimately, create novel biomedical implants.

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UPTON, NY—Even plants have to live on an energy budget. While they’re known for converting solar energy into chemical energy in the form of sugars, plants have sophisticated biochemical mechanisms for regulating how they spend that energy. Making oils costs a lot. By exploring the details of this delicate energy balance, a group of scientists from the U.

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Annually, diseases, weeds, and insects are estimated to cause more than $1.3 billion in losses for sunflower growers. To combat this, researchers are preserving the genetic diversity of wild sunflowers. Wild plants retain the genes needed to resist pests and survive in different environments.

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The success of ecological restoration projects around the world could be boosted using a potential new tool that monitors soil microbes.

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Regular, unleaded or algae? That's a choice drivers could make at the pump one day. But for algal biofuels to compete with petroleum, farming algae has to become less expensive. Toward that goal, Sandia National Laboratories is testing strains of algae for resistance to a host of predators and diseases, and learning to detect when an algae pond is about to crash. These experiments are part of the new, $6 million Development of Integrated Screening, Cultivar Optimization and Validation Research (DISCOVR) project, whose goal is to determine which algae strains are the toughest and most commercially viable.

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists have released a new global, centralized database of plant root traits, or identifying characteristics, that can advance our understanding of how the hidden structure of plants belowground may interact with and relate to life aboveground.

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A new study from an ISU scientists shows the indirect impacts invasive species can have in an ecosystem. The study focused on the brown treesnake, whose introduction to the forests of Guam has led to difficulties for local tree species to reproduce.

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New Mexico State University has recently been awarded a patent on a type of Bigtooth maple tree, the Mesa Glow maple. Its scientific name is Acer grandidentatum “JFS-NuMex 3,” and its leaves turn a brilliant crimson color in the fall.

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For most people, warmer winter temperatures mean a break from home heating bills and an early start on outdoor activities. But for millions of others those warmer temps mean an early - and possibly longer - sneezin' season of runny noses, watery eyes and scratchy throats from seasonal allergies.

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Scores of American chestnut seedlings growing in upstate New York are the vanguard in the restoration of what was once the most dominant tree in the eastern forests. The trees carry one gene, added by scientists, that makes them capable of withstanding the invasive blight that wiped out billions of their ancestors a century ago.

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Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories, The University of New Mexico and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology will adapt previously developed sensors to monitor root function and plant health in new, noninvasive ways.

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If we know what causes Duchenne, why do promising treatments consistently fail? UVA launches innovative new effort to find out.

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A new study analyzed close to 4,500 maize varieties to identify more than 1,000 genes driving large-scale adaptation to the environment.

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Eating popcorn has long been synonymous with watching movies. But soon you might find yourself reaching for another popped snack option—popped sorghum.

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Climate change will bring worsening droughts that threaten crops. One potential way to protect crops is by spraying them with a compound that induces the plants to become more drought resistant. Now, by identifying the key molecular mechanism that enables a plant to minimize water loss, researchers may be one step closer to that goal.

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People put on sweaters when they’re cold. Plants on the other hand, have to essentially knit one on the fly. Plants “knit” with their genes, and when University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers launch their Feb. 14 space experiment, they want to know more about how gene expression helps plants to adapt themselves to outer space.

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A new study probes the origins of carnivory in several distantly related plants — including the Australian, Asian and American pitcher plants, which appear strikingly similar to the human (or insect) eye.

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A plant always makes for a nice gesture on Valentine’s Day, and University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers are breeding flora that may emit alluring aromas to your sweetheart.

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Aerial tree mortality surveys show patterns of tree death during extreme drought.

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Breeding new varieties of chickpeas with desirable traits – such as increased resistance to diseases and pests – is difficult. In a new study, researchers evaluated four combinations of breeding methods and tested whether they increased the success rate of crossing chickpeas.

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The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), and the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) sent an open letter today to President Trump, asking that he “protect and defend the scientific integrity of federal scientists.”

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One of the most detailed genetic studies of any ecosystem to date has uncovered incredible biological diversity among subsurface bacteria. This research has nearly doubled the number of known bacterial groups.

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Increasingly popular techniques that infer species boundaries in animals and plants solely by analyzing genetic differences are flawed and can lead to inflated diversity estimates, according to a new study from two University of Michigan evolutionary biologists.

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A new UdeM study of the flora "Down Under" breaks new ground by showing that soil biota play an important role in the maintenance of plant diversity in species-rich ecosystems.

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New research shows that orchids relying on mosquitoes for pollination attract them by producing the same odors found in common mosquito blood-hosts. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in New Orleans, LA on January 7, 2017.

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Wintry weather can pack a slippery punch. While use of salt on roads and sidewalks can return surfaces to a safer status, too much salt can have long-term effects on soil. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) January 1 Soils Matter blog post explains how too much salt reduces soils’ ability to retain plant nutrients and water, and damage soil structure.

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A new study led by a Berkeley Lab research scientist highlights a literally shady practice in plant science that has in some cases underestimated plants’ rate of growth and photosynthesis, among other traits.

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Extinctions related to climate change have already happened in hundreds of plant and animal species around the world. New research, publishing on December 8th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, shows that local extinctions have already occurred in 47% of the 976 plant and animal species studied.

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New research led by plant scientists at Michigan State University has found that too much rain, coupled with prolonged high levels of humidity, can result in more plant disease.

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Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis isolated an enzyme that controls the levels of two plant hormones simultaneously, linking the molecular pathways for growth and defense. Similar to animals, plants have evolved small molecules called hormones to control key events such as growth, reproduction and responses to infections.

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Winter moths are creating a nuisance and laying eggs that may lead to another spring of defoliated and dying trees.

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MADISON, Wis. – New insights into the mechanism behind how plants age may help scientists better understand crop yields, nutrient allocation, and even the timing and duration of fall leaf color.

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An international team of scientists is providing new insight into the process by which plants use light to split water and create oxygen. In experiments led by Berkeley Lab scientists, ultrafast X-ray lasers were able to capture atomic-scale images of a protein complex found in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria at room temperature.

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New X-ray methods at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have captured the highest resolution room-temperature images of protein complex photosystem II, which allows scientists to closely watch how water is split during photosynthesis at the temperature at which it occurs naturally.

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Research into two natural chemicals shows how they compete to coat and change atmospheric particles created by fossil fuel combustion. The results could improve the accuracy of climate and air quality simulations.

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Berkeley and Illinois researchers have bumped up crop productivity by as much as 20 percent by increasing the expression of genes that result in more efficient use of light in photosynthesis. Their work could potentially be used to help address the world’s future food needs.

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Scientists are working to better understand the photosynthetic antenna complexes that capture sunlight for plants, algae and bacteria to use.

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Researchers at the University of Oxford have demonstrated that the diets of organisms can affect the DNA sequences of their genes.

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The latest research and features on Animals in the Wildlife News Source

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New findings suggest the rate at which CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere has plateaued in recent years because Earth’s vegetation is grabbing more carbon from the air than in previous decades.