Month: October 2018

Irrigated crops can grow with less water but are typically subject to increased salts leached out of the surrounding soil, which can put a dent in productivity. A new study led by Penn biologists has uncovered a way plants respond to salt stress—a pathway that could be manipulated to engineer more tolerant crops Plants respond… Continue reading How plants cope with stress

Cattle on an integrated farm in Deciolandia, in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso Leonardo Sales is a cattle rancher in the arid north of Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. Brazilian farmers like him supply 23% of the world’s cattle, earning $31 billion from the lucrative beef industry. In the past, water scarcity has made… Continue reading How smart farming is helping Brazil feed the world

The Government of Indonesia has approved the first genetically modified crop which will soon be commercialized in the country. The biotech sugarcane event NXI-4T which contains betaine gene was developed by the state-owned sugar company, PT Perkebunan Nusantara XI (PTPN XI). The gene expressed osmoprotectant compound which was introduced using Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated plant transformation.  The GM… Continue reading First GM crop in Indonesia soon to be commercialized

Movie archaeologists are often pictured triumphantly extracting precious objects from the earth, instantly solving long-standing mysteries. Think of Indiana Jones’ Cross of Coronado, Staff of Ra and Ark of the Covenant. Real archaeologists mostly find small, almost valueless objects—and won’t know for years, or decades, what mystery they are resolving. Consider this ancient ear of… Continue reading What ancient maize can tell us about thousands of years of civilization in America

UC Davis plant biologist Siobhan Brady examining roots of tomato plants in her lab. Brady’s team and colleagues at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have discovered the network of genes that allow plant roots to take up and process nitrogen. The information could help in breeding new crop varieties. (David Slipher/UC Davis) With robotics, computers… Continue reading Gene network lets plant roots handle nitrogen

China is transforming its traditional agriculture sector, using science and technology to drive rural revitalization and modernization. Delivering a report on the development of China’s agricultural science and technology recently, Tang Huajun, president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), said remarkable progress has been made in innovation, which has played an important role… Continue reading China reaping harvest of agricultural R&D

The wild rice consumed by our Neolithic ancestors was very different from the domesticated rice eaten today. Although it is unclear when humans first started farming rice, the oldest paddy fields—in the lower Yangzi River Valley—date back to 4000 BC. During its long history of cultivation, rice plants with traits that reduce yield or impede… Continue reading Loss of a microRNA molecule boosts rice production

A diverse array of Andropogoneae tribe grasses grown in a greenhouse at the Donald Danforth Plant Sciences Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Researchers from Cornell and the United States Department of Agriculture will tap into genetic information found in more than 700 species of related grasses, in hopes of making maize and sorghum more productive… Continue reading Grass genes tapped to breed better crops

Rice, the most widely consumed food crop in the world, takes a beating in hot weather. To combat the high temperatures, a global group of scientists, led by a University of Florida researcher, has found the genetic basis to breed a more heat-tolerant rice cultivar. “The productivity of rice, one of the three major cereal… Continue reading University of Florida/IFAS-led study may lead to more heat-tolerant rice

New genetically modified canola varieties could be commercially available in Australia by March next year, just shy of a decade since Roundup Ready was first grown in Western Australia (WA) in 2010. TruFlex technology has been designed to eventually phase out Bayer’s Roundup Ready counterpart, which Bayer Crop Science regional business manager Hugh Trenorden said… Continue reading New GM canola varieties on way