Category

Agriculture

Unlocking the Power of Peas: Genetic discovery promises high-iron vegetables and cereals

By | Agriculture, News, Plant Science

A genetic breakthrough unveils the high-iron mutations in peas, presenting opportunities for fortified vegetables and cereals. This discovery, based on a newly mapped pea-genome, could guide gene-editing strategies to enhance iron content in various crops, addressing global anaemia concerns, especially among women. The findings illuminate iron homeostasis in plants, offering prospects for biofortification.

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Researchers conduct first-ever study of cultural adaptation to climate change

By | Agriculture, Climate change, News

As climate change intensifies, societal and individual struggles to adapt become more apparent. To explore cultural adaptation, researchers conducted the first study of its kind. Analyzing U.S. crop data over 14 years, they applied the science of cultural evolution. Their findings reveal farmers adapting to climate change in some regions, while in others, crops are increasingly mismatched. This first cultural approach marks a milestone in refining climate adaptation strategies.

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Credit: Cron field. Credit: Svetlozar Hristov / Pixabay

AI drones to help farmers optimize vegetable yields 

By | Agriculture, News

For reasons of food security and economic incentive, farmers continuously seek to maximize their marketable crop yields. As plants grow inconsistently, at the time of harvesting, there will inevitably be variations in quality and size of individual crops. Finding the optimal time to harvest is therefore a priority for farmers. A new approach making heavy use of drones and artificial intelligence demonstrably improves this estimation by carefully and accurately analyzing individual crops to assess their likely growth characteristics.

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Image: close up of thin crop roots. Credit: Brigitte Werner / Pixabay

Genetically engineering associations between plants and nitrogen-fixing microbes could lessen dependence on synthetic fertilizer

By | Agriculture, News, Plant Science

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth, but the overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture is not sustainable. In a review article a team of bacteriologists and plant scientists discuss the possibility of using genetic engineering to facilitate mutualistic relationships between plants and nitrogen-fixing microbes called “diazotrophs.” These engineered associations would help crops acquire nitrogen from the air by mimicking the mutualisms between legumes and nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

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farmer working in a rice field

The cloning of the first genic dominant male sterility gene in rice may revolutionize breeding processes

By | Agriculture, News, Plant Science

Male sterility in plants enhances breeding and hybrid crop production. The elusive Sanming Dominant Genic Male Sterile (SDGMS) Rice, discovered in 2001, offered stable male sterility. Scientists recently unraveled the SDGMS gene’s mechanism. They found that in sterile plants, a retrotransposon triggers SDGMS expression in tapetal cells, causing male sterility. This discovery highlights the importance of transposable elements in genome evolution and the utility of SDGMS rice for efficient breeding without manual emasculation.

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Image: mixture of clean peppers or various colours. Credit: Kai Pilger / Pixabay

Unlocking the Genetic Code of Peppers: New Study Reveals Insights into Domestication and Diversity

By | Agriculture, News

Peppers are a versatile, flavorful, and widely popular crop, used not only as a healthy food source but also for their medicinal properties. In a new study, an international team of researchers has sequenced the genomes of key cultivated and wild pepper species, offering unprecedented insights into pepper evolution, domestication, and genetic diversity. 

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