Shrub willow as a bioenergy crop
Renewable energy demand and consumption is at an all-time high in the United States......»»
From moon "dust" to moon "soil": Graduate student grows chickpeas in amended moondust
A love for space exploration led Jessica Atkin, a Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences graduate student in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, to produce the first-ever moondust-grown chickpeas......»»
African smallholder farmers benefit from reduced crop losses and higher incomes from a novel pest alert service
A newly published review of the CABI-led Pest Risk Information Service (PRISE) project shows that smallholder farmers in four African countries who received pest alerts created using earth observation data benefitted from reduced crop losses and high.....»»
Analyzing historical crop yields can reveal key soil health insights
New research from Michigan State University shows how evaluating historical crop yields across distinct areas of agricultural fields can provide farmers with essential information on soil health characteristics and carbon sequestration. The paper was.....»»
Report: Warmer planet will trigger increased farm losses
Extreme heat is already harming crop yields, but a new report quantifies just how much that warming is cutting into farmers' financial security. For every 1 degree Celsius of warming, yields of major crops like corn, soybeans and wheat fall by 16% to.....»»
Enhancing crop resilience: A novel approach to quantifying and predicting frost damage in winter wheat
Abiotic stresses such as heat and frost severely limit plant growth, particularly affecting winter crops like wheat through senescence and leaf area reduction. Modern phenotyping methods, particularly high-throughput field phenotyping (HTFP), have ma.....»»
Chromatin modifier-centered pathway points to higher crop yield
A team led by Prof. Song Xianjun from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, while researching a ternary protein complex in rice nuclei that affects grain size, has shown that the transcription factor bZIP23—a protein that regu.....»»
Harnessing speed breeding and model optimization for sustainable crop development
The rising global population, projected to reach 10 billion by 2050, is anticipated to double the demand for food, especially animal-based products. This surge in demand is set to intensify pressure on agricultural resources, posing additional challe.....»»
Key insights into Salvia miltiorrhiza roots for medicinal plant breeding
Plant phenomics, an emerging field using advanced image recognition and algorithms, focuses on understanding and quantifying plant traits to improve crop breeding. Significant strides have been made with the advent of automated systems and machine le.....»»
Maize yield estimation: The MLAENet approach for accurate and efficient tassel counting
Maize is a vital global crop that requires accurate tassel counting for yield estimation and crop management, traditionally done manually or through basic imaging and machine learning techniques......»»
60% of Africa"s food is based on wheat, rice and maize—the continent"s crop treasure trove is being neglected
African countries have become reliant on a few food items. Just 20 plant species now provide 90% of our food, with three—wheat, maize, and rice—accounting for 60% of all calories consumed on the continent and globally. This deprives the continent.....»»
Exploring the integration of crops and livestock in different historical contexts from ancient times to the present
Crop–livestock integration, the practice of combining crop planting and livestock breeding, is recognized as a fundamental approach to fostering a circular and green economy in agriculture......»»
New rice lines for Africa offer virus protection
Rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV) is responsible for high crop losses in Africa, particularly among small-scale farmers. A research team has now produced rice lines that are resistant to the disease by means of genome editing......»»
Shadows and greenness: Uncovering satellite biases in viewing Earth"s vegetation
For decades, scientists have used satellite data to assess the health and greenness of Earth's vegetation. These data have influenced our understanding and decision-making on pressing issues from sustainable crop production to climate change......»»
Crop spray could lead to mass resistance in new-generation antifungal treatments
An agricultural fungicide approved in the U.S. and currently under consideration by authorities worldwide could have a devastating effect on a new drug for one of world's deadliest infectious diseases, show University of Manchester scientists......»»
Soil fungi may help explain the global gradient in forest diversity
A paper published in Nature Communications Biology contributes to the growing appreciation for the outsize role that microbes play in everything from human digestion to crop yields: Microbes in the soil—fungi in this case—appear to be influencing.....»»
The crucial role of realistic 3D canopy models in light interception analysis for crop resilience and sustainability
Grasping the complex interplay between light and plant canopies is crucial for unlocking the secrets to enhanced crop yields and resilience......»»
Researchers develop "electronic soil" that enhances crop growth
Barley seedlings grow on average 50% more when their root system is stimulated electrically through a new cultivation substrate. In a study published in the journal PNAS, researchers from Linköping University have developed an electrically conductiv.....»»
Stinky, bitter, and painful: A novel insect repellent attacks multiple sensory pathways
Crop damage in agriculture and the transmission of vector-borne diseases by insect pests have become worldwide threats nowadays. Chemical treatments such as insecticides and repellents have been a significant strategy against insect pests for centuri.....»»
Computer vision and neural networks to help detect crop diseases
A research team from Skoltech and Saint-Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation have presented a paper in which they pioneered an alternative method for detecting decayed and moldy apples at the post-harvest stage, when fruits are st.....»»
Researchers map North American wild grape pangenome
Wild North American grapes are now less of a mystery after an international team of researchers led by the University of California, Davis, decoded and cataloged the genetic diversity of nine species of this valuable wine crop......»»