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News

Sep 12
1
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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Sep 08
0
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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Sep 07
1
Image: Tobacco plants. Credit: jimaro morales / Pixabay

Wild tobacco mutants are more susceptible to insect attack but grow faster, shows study

By | News, Plant Science

A recent study shows that a single mutation that has immediate effects on plant fitness is maintained over the long term in natural plant populations, despite theories predict the contrary. The researchers located and identified the gene that regulates the amount of an active defense hormone. Mutants in this gene are susceptible to herbivore attack. However, they compensate for impaired defenses through robust genetic networks. When fewer herbivores attack, they even grow faster and produce more offspring.

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Sep 05
0

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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Sep 01
0
Geomorphological view of the Takakia field study site near Gawalong East Glacier, altitude 3,800–4,400 meters, at Bomi County, Tibet, China. Credit: Dr. Ruoyang Hu, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China

The oldest and fastest evolving moss in the world might not survive climate change

By | News, Plant Science

A 390-million-year-old moss called Takakia lives in some of Earth’s most remote places, including the icy cliffs of the Tibetan Plateau. In a decade-long project, a team of scientists climbed some of the tallest peaks in the world to find Takakia, sequence its DNA for the first time, and study how climate change is impacting the moss. Their results show that Takakia is one of the fastest evolving species ever studied — but it likely isn’t evolving fast enough to survive climate change.

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