Calling on natural defenses to turn back banana pandemic

In the 1950s, the "Gros Michel" variety of banana was wiped out by Panama disease. The banana crop in some locations was basically eliminated by the disease of fusarium wilt, caused by a pathogen that enters the plant through ...

UK permits development of gene-edited crops in climate fight

Britain's government plans to allow researchers to use gene-editing techniques to develop crops that can increase yields, reduce the need for pesticides and cut greenhouse gas emissions as the U.K.'s exit from the European ...

Modified yeast inhibits fungal growth in plants

About 70–80% of crop losses due to microbial diseases are caused by fungi. Fungicides are key weapons in agriculture's arsenal, but they pose environmental risks. Over time, fungi also develop a resistance to fungicides, ...

Digital crop protection from disease and pest plants

Crop diseases threaten yields in the field. Pests and parasitic weeds cause high crop losses of up to 30 percent every year. In the FarmerSpace project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image ...

New tools needed to prevent plant disease pandemics

Plant diseases don't stop at a nation's borders and miles of oceans don't prevent their spread, either. That's why plant disease surveillance, improved plant disease detection systems and predictive plant disease modeling—integrated ...

First full reference genome for rye published

As one of the founding members of the International Rye Genome Sequencing Group (IRGSG), the University of Maryland (UMD) co-published the first full reference genome sequence for rye in Nature Genetics. UMD and international ...

New wheat and barley genomes will help feed the world

An international research collaboration, including scientists from the University of Adelaide's Waite Research Institute, has unlocked new genetic variation in wheat and barley—a major boost for the global effort in breeding ...

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