Category

Agriculture

Image: Rice field image. Credit: Pixabay

Artificial Intelligence Can Now Estimate Rice Yields, According to New Study

By | Agriculture, News, Plant Science

The global demand for rice is projected to rise significantly by 2050, necessitating sustainable intensification of existing croplands. Now, researchers have made significant progress by developing deep-learning algorithms that can rapidly estimate rice yield through the analysis of thousands of photographs. The model exhibited high precision across diverse conditions and cultivars, surpassing previous methods, while effectively detecting yield differences between cultivars and also with different water management practices.

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Image: close up of a white potato flower with yellow petals on a green leaf. Credit: Wolfgang Eckert / Pixabay

Scientists assembled genomes of 300 potato varieties and wild relatives to create resilient, nutritious crops.

By | Agriculture, News, Plant Science

As climate change continues to pose severe challenges to ensuring sustainable food supplies around the world, scientists are looking for ways to improve the resilience and nutritional quality of potatoes. The team have created a potato super pangenome to identify genetic traits that can help produce the next super spud.  

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Chemicals from maize roots influence wheat yield

By | Agriculture, News, Plant Health, Plant Science

Maize roots secrete certain chemicals that affect the quality of soil. In some fields, this effect increases yields of wheat planted subsequent to maize in the same soil by more than 4%. While the findings from several field experiments show that these effects are highly variable, in the long term they may yet help to make the cultivation of grains more sustainable, without the need for additional fertilizers or pesticides.

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Image: tomato plant. credit: 1195798 / Pixabay

Researchers create double-haploid watermelon plants via in vivo, seed-based haploid induction system

By | Agriculture, Fruits and Vegetables, News

Generating haploid plants for the purpose of obtaining pure double haploid lines is widely recognized as one of the most efficient breeding strategies in modern agriculture. Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), an important fruit crop known for its nutritional value and flavor, has undergone long-term artificial selection resulting in genetic narrowing. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a haploid induction system to enhance traditional breeding methods and facilitate the development of valuable lines.

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