International team decodes the durum wheat genome

An international consortium has sequenced the entire genome of durum wheat—the source of semolina for pasta, a food staple for the world's population, according to an article published today in Nature Genetics.

Sexual reproduction only second choice for powdery mildew

Powdery mildew is one of the most dreaded plant diseases: The parasitic fungus afflicts crops such as wheat and barley and is responsible for large harvest shortfalls every year. Beat Keller and Thomas Wicker, both plant ...

Researchers find unusual heat resilience in tree swallows

Tree swallows use behavioral and physiological mechanisms to handle rising temperatures, and their story is an optimistic example of how some species successfully respond to climate change, at least for now.

Embracing bioinformatics in gene banks

The preservation of plant biodiversity is the task of the roughly 1,750 gene banks distributed around the world. They store plant samples and sometimes additional phenotypic or genetic information of around 7.4 million accessions ...

Differences in the genomes of related plant pathogens

Many crop plants worldwide are attacked by a group of fungi that numbers more than 680 different species. After initial invasion, they first grow stealthily inside living plant cells, but then switch to a highly destructive ...

Bacterial community inside the plant root

(Phys.org) -- Soil is the most species-rich microbial ecosystem in the world. From this incredible diversity, plants specifically choose certain species, give them access to the root and so host a unique, carefully selected ...

Pod corn develops leaves in the inflorescences

In a variant of maize known as pod corn, or tunicate maize, the maize kernels on the cob are not 'naked' but covered by long membranous husks known as glumes. According to scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plant ...

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