Copying nature to help plants resist viruses

For thousands of years, crops have been shaped by domestication processes. Farmers cross-breed and select new varieties, adapted to constantly changing environments. Although efficient, this process is time consuming. Moreover, ...

Engineering duckweed to produce oil for biofuels, bioproducts

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have engineered duckweed to produce high yields of oil. The team added genes to one of ...

Growing cereal crops with less fertilizer

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found a way to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizers needed to grow cereal crops. The discovery could save farmers in the United States billions of dollars annually ...

Identifying highly recombinant plants for breeding

For plant breeding, it is important to create as many combinations as possible of genetic variants within a short time to select the most suitable candidates between plants with many different characteristics. The working ...

New gene-edited barley that could improve beer

After a spell of unexpected rain, before the harvest season, a farmer may be faced with the unpredictable problem of untimely sprouting of barley. Sprouted barley fetches considerably lower market prices and poses an economic ...

Team engineers bioenergy-friendly fungi

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory team has successfully introduced a poplar gene into switchgrass, an important biofuel source, that allows switchgrass to interact with a beneficial fungus, ultimately boosting the grass's ...

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