Research Results 1. A step toward controlling soybean rust: Soybean rust, a disease caused by two types of fungi, Phakopsora pachyrhizi (Asian soybean rust) and P.meibomiae (New World soybean rust), has been reported across Asia, Australia, Africa, South America, and
Research Results 1. Future-proofing cereals for drought conditions. Scientists led by Dr. Peter Morris from the Institute of Earth and Life, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh have identified a gene responsible for drought resistance in barley that could help in future-proofing
Research Results 1. Revolutionizing the CRISPR method: As we have reported earlier (see AgriTech News 4), rapid advances are being made using CRISPR technologies. The CRISPR-Cas approach is a biotechnological technique that provides a fast mechanism to manipulate single genes
Research Results 1. Gene from Bitter Melon Protects Rice from Sheath Blight Disease: Rice, along with wheat and maize, is one of the three leading food crops in the world. Grown on 154 million ha, it ranks second to wheat
Research Results 1. Enhancing Crop Yields Under Salinity Conditions Of the Earth’s estimated 400,000 plant species, almost 300,000 are edible. Of those, just about 30 crop species provide food for about 90% of the world’s population, with a mere 4
Images from space could help farmers grow better wheat varieties Satellite imagery could help wheat breeders find genes that maximize yield and fight stress and disease and help farmers learn which varieties grow best in their areas. Photo courtesy of
New plant breeding technologies (NPBTs) for food security Sustained improvement in agricultural productivity is needed to feed the growing global population. Alongside this, land for agriculture is declining as more land is used for urbanization and related developmental activities.
Feeding the world by 2050. Recent advances (also see the next item, Designing Synthetic Plants) to address hunger through agricultural research and development have indicated that crop production can be boosted by 40 percent by creating a shortcut for a
