A four-year field experiment conducted on the shores of restored Lake Mustijärv in Viljandi, Estonia, has revealed that recycling phosphorus-rich lake sediments back to agriculture could have positive impacts on crop production.
Researchers have developed the first-ever microneedle-based drug delivery technique for plants. The method can be used to precisely deliver controlled amounts of agrochemicals to specific plant tissues for research purposes. When applied in the field, it could be used in precision agriculture to improve crop quality and disease management.
New research finds almost 4000 Australian plant species have not been photographed before in the wild, which may lead to their extinction.
The tropics hold most of the planet’s biodiversity. In order to preserve this fragile and valuable asset, many individuals and communities need to get involved and be well informed. However, tropical ecology and conservation sciences are still often affected by colonialistic and discriminatory practices, which can hamper nature conservation success. An international research team from leading universities in tropical research has now proposed how researchers from the Global South, which consists of nations historically damaged by colonialism, could better promote solutions for a sustainable 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.
We need to rethink how we think about Indigenous crops, say plant biologists. These crops include groundnut, teff grass, and a wide range of cereals, grains, fruits, legumes, and root vegetables predominantly cultivated by small farms in Africa, Asia, and South America.
A big part of evolution is competition– when there are limited resources to go around, plants and animals have to duke it out for nutrients, mates, and places to live. That means that the flower-covered meadows of China’s Hengduan mountains were an evolutionary mystery– there are dozens of species of closely-related rhododendrons that all live in harmony. To figure out why, scientists spent a summer carefully documenting the flowering patterns of 34 Rhododendron species, and they discovered the reason why the plants were able to coexist: they burst into bloom at different points in the season so they don’t have to compete for pollinators.
A new study in Costa Rica reveals that restoring relatively narrow strips of riverfront forests could substantially improve regional water quality and carbon storage. The analysis, shows that such buffers tend to be most beneficial in steep, erosion-prone, and intensively fertilized landscapes – a finding that could inform similar efforts in other countries.
Scientists have grown plants in soil from the Moon, a first in human history and a milestone in lunar and space exploration.
Research shows that multi-species mixtures out-yielded perennial ryegrass monocultures receiving double the amount of fertiliser.The most productive swards were a combination of species from the three functional groups of grasses, legumes and herbs. With legume proportion between 30 and 70%, yields were better than the best monoculture.
