Cassava is one of the most important crops in the tropics, feeding half a billion people in more than 80 countries. Cassava bacterial blight (CBB) is a devastating disease that causes crop losses worldwide. Research demonstrated that a new technology, epigenome editing, can reduce CBB symptoms in cassava plants while maintaining normal growth and development.
Delving deeper into organ development requires long-term monitoring of organ growth. Researchers have designed a novel approach that they employed to characterise growing leaves. Over several weeks scientists photographed more than 1,000 leaves at varying developmental stages. By applying targeted algorithms, they were able to reconstruct the complete story of leaf development.
Using commercial, high-resolution satellite images and artificial intelligence, an international team mapped almost 10 billion individual trees in Africa’s drylands to assess the amount of carbon stored outside of the continent’s dense tropical forests. The result is the first comprehensive estimate of tree carbon density in the Saharan, Sahel, and Sudanian zones of Africa. The data are free and publicly available.
How do plants defend themselves against pathogenic micro-organisms? This is a complex puzzle, of which a team of biologists has solved a new piece. They discovered that while the water pores (hydathodes) in leaves provide an entry point for bacteria, they are also an active part of the defence against these invaders.
A gene discovered could help fortify the defenses of sorghum to anthracnose, a disease of the cereal grain crop that can inflict yield losses of up to 50 percent.
A new study suggests that, based on the identification of certain molecular mechanisms, it is possible to develop Super-Adaptable Plants (SAP) with higher nutrient absorption in unfavorable conditions.
Trees living in conditions where the carbon dioxide (CO2) has been artificially elevated are likely to become more efficient in conserving water.
One of the impacts of climate change is the proliferation of viruses on cultivated plants. To reduce the use of pesticides and promote the deployment of agroecological practices, one strategy is to increase the natural resistance of plants to viruses. Promising results, using genome editing to mimic natural selection.
Non-native forest tree species can reduce native species diversity if they are planted in uniform stands. In contrast, the effects of introduced species on soil properties are small. This was found by an international review study.
A new decade long study from South African National Parks examines the usefulness of high-intensity fires to prevent bush encroachment in the long term and introduces a new approach to tackling the issue.
