Month: September 2018

Plant genetic resources are any plant materials, such as seeds, fruits, cuttings, pollen, and other organs and tissues from which plants can be grown. The stewards are the breeders, researchers, farmers, genebank staff, and many others who keep them safe and utilize them. Peter Bretting, a National Program Leader for the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service,… Continue reading Plant Genetic Resources Ensure Ag’s Future

Bacterial wilt devastates tomato crops world-wide. So far farmers had to wait for mature plants to observe resistance to the disease. Now research shows a possible way of saving time and reducing risk significantly for farmers and plant breeders. A new approach promises to forecast cultivar resistance at seedling stage, when plants already ‘mix cocktails’… Continue reading Tomatoes ‘mixing chemical cocktails’: Early detection of disease resistance in food crops

Food production needs to increase by 70 per cent to feed the nine billion population projected for 2050. Fortunately, the industry is benefiting from some radical thinking. Here are the cutting edge technologies taking farming towards this goal. Bees as micro-distributors of pesticide  Bee Vectoring Technologies is a Canadian startup which has developed a commercial… Continue reading The future of farming: robots, bees and plant jacuzzis

By Think Real – On 10 August 2018, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (MOA) unveiled the agricultural produce supply and demand analysis made this month. It is expected that in 2018/19, the demand for corn will outweigh the production – the balance at the year of the… Continue reading China’s corn planting area may rebound in 2019

A new study in Nature Sustainability reports that “Extensive field data suggest that impacts on wild populations would be greatly reduced through boosting yields on existing farmland so as to spare remaining wild habitats.” Basically, producing more food on less land is really good for the environment because farmers will plow up fewer forests and prairies, thus leaving more… Continue reading High yield modern farming better for the environment, says Nature study

Chinese growers have the answer to a question that has been baffling scientists for three centuries: Can electricity boost plant growth? To find out, China has been conducting the world’s largest experiment and the results are transforming agricultural production in the world’s most populous nation with a jolt. Across the country, from Xinjiang’s remote Gobi… Continue reading China is making its vegetables grow bigger, faster and stronger … using electricity

China has experienced large and sustained reductions in pesticide use as a result of adopting GMO cotton, according to the largest-ever scientific study on the impacts of Bt cotton use in that country. Although Bt was only targeting the cotton bollworm, the subsequent reduction in pesticide applications allowed natural predators to further control other insect… Continue reading GMO cotton prompts dramatic drop in China’s pesticide use

An international team of scientists applied genome-wide association analysis for the first time to study the genetics that underlie grain zinc concentrations in wheat, according to a report published in Nature Scientific Reports on September 10. Analyzing zinc concentrations in the grain of 330 bread wheat lines across diverse environments in India and Mexico, the researchers uncovered 39 new… Continue reading Researchers find “hotspot” regions in the wheat genome for high zinc content, new study shows

Rules on GM food and animal research in Britain will be reconsidered ahead of Brexit after lobbying by leading UK scientists. Under European Union rules it is virtually impossible to genetically engineer plants or animals – and scientists fear it will continue even after Brexit, if the country adopts a common rule book as planned.… Continue reading Changing rules on gene editing after Brexit could ‘alleviate world hunger’, scientists claim

Western Australian research has identified and delivered 14 canola lines with the ability to cope with heat and/or drought stress, the AusCanola 2018 conference in Perth was told recently. The research was undertaken at The University of Western Australia (UWA) as part of the projects ‘Expanding the Brassica Germplasm Base through Collaboration with China and… Continue reading Promising findings from canola heat tolerance research