Guam is home to “Cycas micronesica”, an arborescent cycad species that is facing threats from several invasive insect pests. The once widespread tree has been decimated from the forests on Guam and the nearby island of Rota, leading the International Union for Conservation of Nature to list the gymnosperm tree species as endangered.
Findings pave the way for developing environmentally friendly fungicides. Fungal diseases cause substantial losses of agricultural harvests each year. The fungus Botrytis cinerea causing gray mold disease is a major problem for farmers growing strawberries, grapes, raspberries, tomatoes and lettuce. To mitigate the problem, they often resort to applying chemical fungicides which can lose their effectiveness over time.
Crop hybrid technologies have contributed to the significant yield improvement worldwide in the past decades. However, designing and maintaining a hybrid production line has always been complex and laborious. Now, researchers have developed a new system combining CRISPR-mediated genome editing with other approaches that could produce better seeds compared with conventional hybrid methods and shorten the production timeline by 5 to 10 years.
New research shows, in a world first, a recreation of the evolution of flowering plants through time – a complete angiosperm ‘time-tree’.
A new study has analyzed one environment-sensitive genic male sterile (EGMS) line that exhibited fertility transition under specified environmental conditions.
After several years of experimentation, scientists have engineered thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, to behave like a succulent, improving water-use efficiency, salinity tolerance and reducing the effects of drought. The tissue succulence engineering method devised for this small flowering plant can be used in other plants to improve drought and salinity tolerance with the goal of moving this approach into food and bioenergy crops.
When cells don’t divide into proper copies of themselves, living things fail to grow as they should. For the first time, scientists now understand how a protein called TANGLED1 can lead to accurate cell division in plants.
When we cut our fingers, blood rushes out of the wound to close it. However, the vegetable, we just wanted to slice and dice, would have reacted utterly different to this injury. Now scientists investigated how plant cells heal wounds. In their results the researchers discovered that the hormone Auxin and pressure changes are crucial to regeneration.
Citrus greening disease (Huanglongbing of HLB), transmitted by the Asian citrus psyllid, is currently the biggest threat to the citrus industry and is threat to many parts of the world. In Florida alone, citrus greening disease has accounted for losses of several billions of U.S. dollars. Despite HLB’s widespread prevalence, factors influencing the epidemic are poorly understood because most research has been conducted after the pathogen has been introduced.
In a world first, researchers have discovered a plant that has successfully evolved to use ants—as well as native bees—as pollinating agents by overcoming their antimicrobial defenses.
