A Stanford University team is developing plants that can better absorb iron from the soil. By making it easier to ingest the trace mineral, it may be possible to open up the roughly one-third of the world's arable land that is unsuitable for growing staples like maize and soybeans.
Continue Reading
Mitochondrial DNA in plants is so complex that scientists haven’t yet been able to edit the genes in there. Now a team of Japanese researchers has managed to do just that, which could help improve the genetic diversity of crops.
Continue Reading
According to Latvian entrepreneur Elviss Straupenieks, it costs about US$65,000 a year to pesticide-spray an average-size vineyard using a helicopter. His alternative? Well, he claims that his company's AirBoard Agro drone can do it for half as much – plus it offers a few other advantages.
Continue Reading
A new study of satellite data has shown that the Earth has gotten “greener” in the last 20 years or so, with the biggest contributors being China and India. Before we celebrate though, there are a few caveats to consider.
Continue Reading
Sulfur is often chemically "scrubbed" from the flue-gas emissions of coal-burning power plants. Gypsum (aka calcium sulfate) is produced as a byproduct of the process, and typically ends up in landfills. According to new research, however, it could be used to boost crops in a number of ways.
Continue Reading
According to the ASA, it's an unfortunate fact that many people in developing nations don't get enough protein in their diets. What they often do get a lot of, however, is rice. So, scientists have improved upon a type of rice that has over 50 percent more protein than regular varieties.
Continue Reading
Research has demonstrated a novel technique to enhance photosynthetic efficiency in rice crops can increase grain yields by up to 27 percent. The study follows other recent demonstrations of food bioengineering designed to enhance worldwide food productivity by improving the photosynthesis process.
Continue Reading
A team of researchers has, for the first time, demonstrated that by fixing a common glitch in photosynthesis, a crop’s yield could be improved by around 40 percent. The landmark study suggests optimizing a plant’s photosynthetic efficiency could significantly increase worldwide food productivity.
Continue Reading
Back in 2015, we heard about a prototype vineyard-monitoring robot known appropriately enough as VineRobot. Now, its successor has been unveiled in Portugal. Developed via a European Union research consortium, it's called VineScout.
Continue Reading
After a massive international effort involving over 200 scientists across 20 countries, the entire wheat genome has been finally sequenced. The landmark human achievement is hoped to lead to more efficient wheat breeding and production of crops.
Continue Reading
See the stories that matter in your inbox every morning