Month: July 2019

Dive Brief: A World Resources Institute report published July 17 said urgent changes in the global food system are needed to make sure there is enough food for an estimated 10 billion people by 2050. To reach this goal, the 564-page report said a number of adjustments have to be made, including ramping up the use… Continue reading Study: GMOs are needed to feed the planet in 2050

China is the world’s largest importer of soybeans and represented 65 percent of global soybean imports in 2017. Soybeans are the most prominent agricultural commodity exported to China by both the United States and Brazil. 2017, prior to the Chinese government’s implementation of tariffs on U.S. soybeans, exports of soybeans were valued at $12.3 billion… Continue reading USDA: Soybeans accounted for majority of US, Brazil’s agricultural exports to China

Protecting crops from pests and pathogens without using toxic pesticides has been a longtime goal of farmers. Researchers at Boyce Thompson Institute have found that compounds from an unlikely source — microscopic soil roundworms — could achieve this aim. As described in research published in the May 2019 issue of Journal of Phytopathology, these compounds helped… Continue reading Researchers found worm pheromones could protect major crops

A rice gene that renders the crop resistant to several widely used beta-triketone herbicides has been identified, researchers report, revealing the genetic cause of herbicide susceptibility that has been identified in some important rice varieties. The newly discovered gene may be useful in breeding new herbicide-resistant crops. Rice is a staple food for more than… Continue reading Newly identified rice gene confers multiple-herbicide resistance

Researchers of the Institute of the Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP), mixed centre of Valencia’s Polytechnic University (UPV) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), have identified a double mechanism, of inhibition and degradation, to regulate the response of plants to drought. The results of this research, which increases available knowledge on how… Continue reading Researchers identify double mechanism that regulates how plants react to drought

Research into disease resistance at WUR has apparently involved the testing of around 20,000 individual plants (Photo: Fernando Alexander García-Bastidas) The international banana industry is apparently a major step closer to salvation after scientists revealed they are closer than ever to developing fruit that is immune to TR4, a strain of the fungal disease fusarium… Continue reading Scientists identify TR4-resistant bananas

Conventional crop breeding was about selection and crossing of plants within the same genus, to produce offspring with the desired traits of both parents. Even in the Green Revolution, the dwarfing genes that Norman Borlaug used for developing high-yielding wheat plants with shorter and stronger stalks — allowing them to bear the weight of the… Continue reading GM crops in India: farmers clear, politics muddled

The global population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 — but how will we feed all these people? Roughly one-third of the world’s arable land suffers from lack of accessible iron, rendering it inhospitable to staple crops like maize and soybeans. Last year, a Stanford research team led by associate professor of chemical… Continue reading A new way to grow crops in marginal soils could help feed the world

Illinois study advances possibility of genetic control for major agricultural weeds An article featured in the journal Weed Science sheds important new light on the genetics and potential control of Palmer amaranth and waterhemp – two troublesome Amaranthus species weeds that are resistant to multiple herbicides. While most Amaranthus species are monoecious and contain both… Continue reading Scientists hope genetic research will lead to new breakthroughs in weed control

Enjoying a much greater amount of rice yield is not the only reason for Pakistan’s young agrarian Wasim Waheed’s satisfaction, but achieving exemplary excellence in its research and development by using modern technology is also making him happy and proud. The 24-year-old agrarian, who is working as a research manager at a rice farmhouse in… Continue reading Chinese agricultural technology to help boost Pakistan’s rice export