Agriculture
Exploiting a genetic quirk in potatoes may cut fertilizer needs
A gene controlling potato growth limits the plant’s fertilizer uptake. Tweaking related genes could lead to more sustainable potato varieties.
Agriculture
More Stories in Agriculture
- Agriculture
Can scientists make fruits and veggies resilient to climate change?
Combining traditional plant breeding with new genomics tools is allowing scientists to grow plants that are better adapted to a warming climate.
- Climate
How powdered rock could help slow climate change
A method called enhanced rock weathering shows promise at capturing carbon dioxide from the air. But verifying the carbon removal is a challenge.
- Agriculture
50 years ago, scientists ID’d a threat to California wine country
Fifty years after scientists identified the cause of Pierce's disease, which damages vineyards, there still isn't a cure.
- Agriculture
Mixing up root microbes can boost tea’s flavor
Inoculating tea plant roots with nitrogen-metabolizing bacteria enhances synthesis of theanine, an amino acid that gives tea its savoriness.
- Agriculture
Could a rice-meat hybrid be what’s for dinner?
A hybrid food that combines rice, animal cells and fish gelatin could one day be a more sustainable way to produce meat.
- Plants
Berkley Walker wants to revamp photosynthesis for a changing climate
Finding ways to make plants work better could help feed a growing population, especially as the planet warms.
- Animals
Camouflaging wheat with a wheat smell could be a new approach to pest control
Wheat fields coated in wheat germ oil confuse the noses of mice, reducing seed loss by more than 60 percent, a new study finds.
- Life
50 years ago, flesh-eating screwworms pushed scientists to mass produce flies
"Fly factories” dreamed up in the early 1970s have helped North and Central America keep screwworms in check for decades.
- Agriculture
Martian soil may have all the nutrients rice needs
Experiments hint that in the future, we might be able to grow the staple food in the soils of the Red Planet.
