Poaceae is a large monocotyledonous plant family encompassing the true grasses, characterized by herbaceous, often culm-forming stems with hollow internodes, leaves composed of sheaths, ligules, and linear blades, and a distinctive inflorescence of spikelets bearing reduced, wind-pollinated florets. Flowers are typically subtended by glumes and lemmas, with lodicules facilitating anthesis, and produce single-seeded dry fruits (caryopses) in which the seed coat is fused to the pericarp. Poaceae exhibits C3, C4, and intermediate photosynthetic pathways, occupies diverse terrestrial habitats worldwide, and plays central roles in primary productivity, biogeochemical cycling, and the evolution of grass-dominated ecosystems.
A new study led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign scientists reveals critically low genetic variation in one of the country's primary breeding stocks for corn. The finding relates specifically to grain yield in intermediate-maturity ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 11, 2026
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A new archaeobotanical study by researchers from the University of Oxford and Kiel University (CAU) has revealed that increases in cereal grain size at the dawn of agriculture, more than 11,000 years ago, were initially driven ...
Evolution
Aug 11, 2026
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17
Heart-healthy oats are finding their way into a wider variety of products and recipes as consumer demand grows. Although oats are grown on far fewer acres than other U.S. crops, farmers are able to keep up with demand through ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Aug 6, 2026
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6
A study by La Trobe University researchers has found annual ryegrass, the most damaging weed in Australian grain systems, can adjust its growth and reproduction to survive under drought stress, making it potentially harder ...
Agriculture
Aug 5, 2026
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17
Deeply rooted perennial plants may help build soil carbon (C) stocks, but most research has focused on shallow soils, resulting in gaps in our understanding of how the balance between decomposition and C inputs shifts and ...
Agriculture
Aug 4, 2026
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4
In a new study by the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), researchers evaluated oil sorghum lines in Nebraska and Illinois over two years to quantify genotype-by-environment effects on agronomic ...
Biotechnology
Aug 4, 2026
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17
Plant biologists and engineers have extended their studies to the skies to track airborne pollen once it leaves a crop. In a new study, published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, researchers established an accurate ...
Ecology
Aug 3, 2026
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16
Unlike humans, plants cannot make simple lifestyle adjustments to adapt to changing environments. When exposed to conditions like extreme heat or water scarcity, instead of putting on sweaters or turning on air conditioners, ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 30, 2026
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5
A new study on how rising temperatures will affect rice production in Science Advances compares 214 observations from field-warming experiments with seven crop models, revealing modeled estimates for yield reductions from ...
Agriculture
Jul 29, 2026
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14
As temperature and precipitation fluctuations continue to influence crop production worldwide, it is important to understand where crops are most vulnerable to these environmental stressors.
Ecology
Jul 28, 2026
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