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Tag: "crops" at biology news

Spider Venom Could Yield Eco-Friendly Insecticides

...sect pests destroy about 25 percent of the world's crops each year, despite the extensive application of chemical insecticides since World War II. The initial effectiveness of DDT in agricultural use and malaria eradication programs led many to view chemical insecticides as a panacea. But widespread use of...

Plant hemoglobins: Oxygen handlers critical for nitrogen fixation

...ontributes millions of tons of reduced nitrogen to crops and pastures each year. As reported this week, researchers led by Dr. Michael Udvardi at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology have succeeded in eliminating the production of symbiotic hemoglobins in nodules of the model legume Lotu...

Essential mangrove forest threatened by cryptic ecological degradation

...ese projects certainly develop the ability to grow crops inland, at the same time such practices drastically affect the coastal zone by introducing an excess of fresh water. The consequences range from adverse shifts in the composition of mangrove tree species to disrupted ethnobiological relationships, la...

UCSD discovery may help extend life of natural pesticide

...d by organic farmers and in genetically engineered crops to ward off insect pests. Their findings should facilitate the design and use of Bt toxins to prevent insects, which the researchers believe also possess the molecule, from developing resistance to Bt, extending the life of this natural pesticide. ...

Genetically modified rice in China benefits farmers' health, study finds

...oing research on genetically modified agricultural crops in the 1980s. Although it has aggressively commerc...na has not developed any genetically modified food crops for the commercial market. "This study provides China and other nations with objective, research-ba...

Scientists discuss improved biopesticides for locust control in West Africa

...West Africa. Last year, locusts stripped fields of crops and trees of foliage across several countries, causing severe income and food supply loss. Larry Vaughan, associate program director of the USAID-funded Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CRSP) and research associ...

Defenseless plants arm themselves with metals

...s and may have implications for the development of crops that may one day remove metal and other contaminants from the environment. "Our goal is to find the high-level regulator - the one gene or group of genes that turns a plant into a hyperaccumulator," said David Salt, associate professor of plant mole...

Are rice and wheat behind China's population boom?

...d says. "We had no evidence of what other kinds of crops they grew, their relative popularity across the country and how these people may have been managing their local ecology." Crawford says what they are seeing now is a very sophisticated knowledge about growing rice - how to intensify yields through t...

Stealth Worms May Improve Insect Pest Control

... the laboratory first, then go out and look at the crops and environment," Stock says. Some of her work inv...grass and other crops, rather than on high-acreage crops like cotton and soybeans. "The beauty of this is that in the last 20 years nematodes have been form...

Six million Africans face famine because of locusts, drought

With locusts and drought having destroyed crops and stripped grazing land for six million people across West Africa, small farmers have started selling livestock cheaply and eating the seed corn they should plant during next month's expected rains, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of...

Researchers find gene that may be at root of potato blight

...ggering the blight that wiped out Ireland's potato crops a century-and-a-half ago. And the pathogen that c...gies for managing late blight in potato and tomato crops are unsustainable and costly. In the United States and other developed countries, the chronic use of...

Scientists identify genes responsible for 'black rot' disease in vegetables

...se, which is the most serious disease of vegetable crops worldwide. Their study, which represents the large...h humidity and temperature), Xcc infects vegetable crops by spreading through the plants' vascular tissues, turning the veins in their leaves yellow and blac...

Experiment station researchers to explore genome of disease-fighting fungus

...ngus, Trichoderma virens, is used to protect field crops from various plant diseases. Researchers say the g...evelop new versions of the fungus to protect field crops from diseases. This would decrease the amount of pesticide and other chemicals applied throughout a ...

Unique library of plant genes germinates, takes root at UNC

... work, it will undoubtedly contribute to improving crops that humans around the planet depend on every day, its developers say. Named Phytome, the unique library is a compilation of voluminous genetic data on 39 plant species. The list includes almost all the world's most valuable crops, among them rice, ...

Key to elephant conservation is 'in the sauce'

...irector for the EPDT. "They can be grown as buffer crops to prevent crop-raiding and then be harvested and ...d as a means of stopping elephants from destroying crops in the Zambezi Valley, which straddles the borders of Zimbabwe and Zambia. While electric fences and...

UNC plant researchers discover proteins interact to form hair-trigger protection against invaders

... some 30 percent of our grain, fruit and vegetable crops after all the human, water and soil energy has already gone into producing them," Dangl said. "The hope is that we might be able to manipulate plants' immune systems to make them more resistant to pathogens using fewer expensive and polluting chemica...

FDA approves more generic AIDS drugs

... some 30 percent of our grain, fruit and vegetable crops after all the human, water and soil energy has already gone into producing them," Dangl said. "The hope is that we might be able to manipulate plants' immune systems to make them more resistant to pathogens using fewer expensive and polluting chemica...

Insects develop resistance to engineered crops

Genetically modified crops containing two insecticidal proteins in a single plant efficiently kill insects. But when crops engineered with just one of those toxins grow nearby, insects may more rapidly develop resistance to...

Bacteria are key to 'green' plastics, drugs

...nologies use renewable resources like agricultural crops rather than non-renewable fossil fuels, and they produce less waste. "Succinate is a high-priority chemical that the U.S. Department of Energy has targeted for biosynthesis," said process co-developer George Bennett, professor and chair of the depar...

A new molecule discovered in the battle between plants and disease

...ld lead to a general increase in the resistance of crops to pathogens, which could greatly benefit farmers. Already, the researchers have used the Pep1 gene to increase the resistance of Arabidopsis plants to a fungal pathogen called Pythium irregulare. These findings will be presented July 20, at 11:20 a...

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