Flowering plants are better pollinated in urban than in rural areas. This has now been demonstrated experimentally by a team of scientists led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). Although the scientists found »
People have used the phrase "drone on and on" for a long time. Webster's dictionary defines this figure of speech as "to speak for a long time in a dull voice without saying anything interesting." Yet, in agriculture, drones aren't dull, at all! Farmers use drones »
Plants possess an immune system much like humans and animals. It can recognize pathogenic fungi by the chitin in their cell walls, triggering disease resistance. Some fungi hide from plant immune system by converting chitin into chitosan. Researchers at the University of Münster have found that plants can react to »
Scientists from Cornell University reported in Bacteriology journal that wild tomato varieties are more resistant to bacterial canker than the traditionally cultivated varieties. They aimed at understanding how bacteria spread and colonize in wild tomatoes compared to the cultivated tomatoes. They zeroed in on the plants' vascular systems, particularly in »
Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists found benefits of insect leaf-wounding in fruit and vegetable production. Stress responses created in the fruits and vegetables initiated an increase in antioxidant compounds prior to harvest, making them healthier for human consumption. "Many studies in the past supported this idea, but »
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences improved the tocopherol composition of maize to maximize its use for human and livestock health. The results are published in Transgenic Research. α-tocopherol, a form of vitamin E, is the most effective antioxidant. It is produced from γ-tocopherol by γ-tocopherol methyltransferase (γ-TMT, »
New research from UC Riverside identifies a protein that controls plant growth -- good news for an era in which crops can get crushed by climate change. Researchers found the protein, IRK, while looking for clues to the ways plant cells divide or expand. They discovered IRK in the roots »
Scientists from the University of Glasgow have discovered a safe and novel method that can safeguard important crops from the widespread bacterial disease Pseudomonas syringae (Ps). The results of their study are published in Plant Biotechnology Journal. The researchers genetically modified (GM) plants to produce a protein antibiotic or bacteriocin »
Farmers might finally be able to answer the question: How now brown cow? Research at the University of Sydney has shown that cows maintain individual voices in a variety of emotional situations. Cows 'talk' to one another and retain individual identity through their lowing. Studying a herd of 18 Holstein-Friesian »
Scientists from China National Rice Research Institute used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit Semi-Dwarf1 (SD1) in elite Chinese rice varieties, which has several desired agronomic traits. The results are published in Scientific Reports. Expanding genetic diversity among rice varieties is vital to prevent genetic erosion or loss of genetic variation in a »
Farmers could soon be growing tomatoes bunched like grapes in a storage unit, on the roof of a skyscraper, or even in space. That's if a clutch of new gene-edited crops prove as fruitful as the first batch. The primary goal of this new research is to engineer a wider »
