Metabolite stimulates a crop while suppressing a weed

A newly discovered, naturally occurring metabolite that promotes growth in rice plants and thwarts infestation by a common parasitic plant could help improve global food security, say KAUST researchers. Plant scientists are ...

Disappearing rice fields threaten more global warming

All over China, a huge change has been taking place without any of us noticing. Rice paddies have been (and are being) converted at an astonishing rate into aquaculture ponds to produce more protein for the worlds growing ...

Generating electricity with rice straw

Rice straw is the waste product of growing rice. Normally, it is simply burned adding sooty pollution to the local air and nudging up atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. What if there were a better alternative to simply burning ...

Loss of a microRNA molecule boosts rice production

The wild rice consumed by our Neolithic ancestors was very different from the domesticated rice eaten today. Although it is unclear when humans first started farming rice, the oldest paddy fields—in the lower Yangzi River ...

Plant growth-promoting bacteria enhance plant salinity tolerance

Soil salinity is one of the key abiotic stress factors affecting agricultural productivity worldwide. Every day, nearly 2000 hectares of fertile agricultural land degrades due to salinity. There are only limited agricultural ...

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