Crops

Along with being costly, herbicides can also harm the environment … so why apply them to a whole crop, instead of just the areas where weeds are growing? That's the thinking behind the Solix Sprayer robot, which spots and sprays weeds in fields.

Scientists have improved on the natural process of photosynthesis, not only growing plants more efficiently, but doing so in the dark. This could expand agriculture to areas that don’t get enough sunlight, and even help feed future space explorers.

Farmers could be spared a lot of work and expense – plus the environment could be spared a lot of harmful chemicals – if crops didn't have to be sprayed indiscriminately. The new plant-inspecting Solix robot was designed with those facts in mind.

Birds regularly eat large quantities of crops, and often become accustomed to stationary devices designed to scare them away. That's why scientists are now looking at using autonomous drones to do the job.

Because seeds may contain yield-reducing fungi, bacteria or viruses, they're often chemically treated before they're sold to farmers. A new mobile system, however, substitutes microbe-killing electrons for harsh and eco-unfriendly chemicals.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a new gene-editing system they call CRISPR-Combo, which can edit multiple genes at once while also changing the expression of others in plants, to increase efficiency of genetic engineering.

Vitamin D deficiency is a growing health issue, but very few foods are rich in the nutrient. To help combat the problem, scientists have now used CRISPR gene editing to fortify tomatoes with vitamin D.

Instead of using insecticides, farmers will sometimes cover their plants with a mesh fabric. A new such material has now been developed, which keeps out a wider range of bugs while still allowing crops to get enough sunlight and water.

Farmers will often place sheets of plastic on the ground along their crop rows, in order to help hold moisture in the soil. According to a new study, however, the use of wax-coated sand may be a cheaper and greener way to go.

In East Africa and other regions, potato crops are currently threatened by a worm known as the potato cyst nematode. There could be new hope for protecting the plants, however, in the form of biodegradable paper made from banana waste.

Although genetically modified crops have some advantages over their regular counterparts, creating the modified plants can be quite challenging. Scientists have now developed a simpler approach, in which normal plants are altered with a crop spray.

Ammonia is commonly used in commercial crop fertilizers, which in turn can pollute waterways when they run off of fields. New research, however, suggests that engineered bacteria could one day take the place of such fertilizers.