Agriculture Research and News
Bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus and switchgrass, appear to be promising resources for renewable energy, but these new crops did not come with a manual on how to measure details on their sustainability impacts. Jody Endres, University of Illinois professor of energy and environmental law and chair of the Council on Sustainable Biomass Production says standards are needed so farmers, ethanol producers, and others in the biofuels industry will all be on the same page.
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The sun provides the most abundant source of energy on the planet. However, only a tiny fraction of the solar radiation on Earth is converted into useful energy.
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New technology offers the promise of reducing billions of dollars of losses that occur each year from the silent, invisible killer of fruits, vegetables and cut flowers -- a gas whose effects are familiar to everyone who has seen bananas and other fruit ripen too quickly and rot. That's the conclusion of an article in the ACS journal Chemical Reviews.
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 | Swedish and Spanish engineers have created a system of sensors that detects fruit odors more effectively than the human sense of smell. For now, the device can distinguish between the odorous compounds emitted by pears and apples. ...> Full Article |
Having a neighborly chat improves seed germination, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology. Even when other known means of communication, such as contact, chemical and light-mediated signals, are blocked, chilli seeds grow better when grown with basil plants. This suggests that plants are talking via nanomechanical vibrations.
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That human land use destroys natural ecosystems is an oft-cited assumption in conservation, but ecologists have discovered that instead, traditional ranching techniques in the African savanna enhance the local abundance of wild, native animals. These results offer a new perspective on the roles humans play in natural systems, and inform ongoing discussions about land management and biodiversity conservation.
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 | A new study led by Illinois professor of entomology May Berenbaum shows that some components of the nectar and pollen grains bees collect to manufacture food increase expression of detoxification genes that help keep honey bees healthy. ...> Full Article |
 | In the spring following a forest fire, trees that survived the blaze explode in new growth and plants sprout in abundance from the scorched earth. For centuries, it was a mystery how seeds, some long dormant in the soil, knew to push through the ashes to regenerate the burned forest. ...> Full Article |
 | North America isn't known as a hotspot for crop plant diversity, yet a new inventory has uncovered nearly 4,600 wild relatives of crop plants in the United States, including close relatives of globally important food crops such as sunflower, bean, sweet potato, and strawberry. ...> Full Article |
Horses experience back pain so riders do their best to minimise the loads exerted on horses' backs, but how much of a difference do the different trotting techniques make to the loads horses experience? Patricia de Cocq from Wageningen University analysed riders on trotting horses and discovered that 'rising trot' reduces the load significantly. She also built a computational simulation of a horse and rider that explains why jockeys ride so fast.
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 | Researchers have digitized 106 years of growth data on the birth, growth and death of individual plants on Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Ariz., making the information available for study by people all over the world. The permanent research plots on the University of Arizona's Tumamoc Hill represent the world's longest-running study that monitors individual plants. Knowing how plants respond to changing conditions over many decades provides new insights into how ecosystems behave. ...> Full Article |
Texas A&M University researchers and others studied how electron-beam pasteurization of raw oysters may reduce the possibility of food poisoning through virus.
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In a Kansas study, 50 years of inorganic fertilization increased soil organic carbon stocks but seemingly failed to enhance soil aggregate stability -- a key indicator of soil structural quality that helps dictate how water moves through soil and the soil's resistance to erosion.
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Why do rose petals have rounded ends while their leaves are more pointed? In a new study published April 30 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, scientists from the John Innes Centre and University of East Anglia, UK, reveal that the shape of petals is controlled by a hidden map located within the plant's growing buds.
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 | An MBL study in the fast-changing southern Amazon--a region marked by widespread replacement of native forest by cattle ranches and croplands--suggests that some of the damaging impacts of agricultural fertilization on local streams may be buffered by the deep, highly permeable soils that characterize large areas of the expanding cropland. ...> Full Article |
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