Methane: a powerful gas heating the planet
Climate talks often revolve around reducing the most dangerous greenhouse gas CO2.
Climate talks often revolve around reducing the most dangerous greenhouse gas CO2.
Environment
23 hours ago
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13
Two bio-researchers, one with Huazhong Agricultural University, the other the Firefly Conservation Research Center, both in China, have identified the key transcription factors that regulate the development of light organs ...
Rice feeds the world. But a look-alike weed has many ways of getting ahead. Weedy rice is an agricultural pest with a global economic impact. It is an aggressive weed that outcompetes cultivated rice and causes billions of ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 21, 2024
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Scientists in South Korea have developed a new type of sustainable hybrid food—a "meaty" rice that they say could help solve food crises and climate change.
Agriculture
Feb 18, 2024
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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States was high, as working-class laborers in the country viewed Chinese workers as a threat.
Archaeology
Feb 15, 2024
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From lab-grown chicken to cricket-derived protein, these innovative alternatives offer hope for a planet struggling with the environmental and ethical impacts of industrial agriculture. Now, Korean scientists add a new recipe ...
Biotechnology
Feb 14, 2024
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Rice production in Africa is in urgent need of intensification to meet future demand. This is to prevent the continent from becoming largely dependent on the import of rice or significant portions of farmlands being used ...
Agriculture
Feb 5, 2024
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Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the staple food for more than half of the world's population. Based on mathematical modeling, worldwide cereal production is estimated to have a loss of 6%–7% yield per 1°C increase in seasonal ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jan 30, 2024
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The soil microbiome has far-reaching significance, particularly for rice production, which can be better explained with a Japanese proverb: "Rice grows with soil fertility, while upland crops depend on fertilization." Therefore, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 30, 2024
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Rice (Oryza sativa) is a staple food for many people, but rice production is challenged by climate change, making it critical to improve yield traits such as panicle number per unit area (PNpM2).
Biotechnology
Jan 17, 2024
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Rice is the seed of the monocot plant Oryza sativa, of the grass family (Poaceae). As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, the West Indies, East, South and Southeast Asia. It is the grain with the second highest worldwide production, after maize ("corn").. Since a large portion of maize crops are grown for purposes other than human consumption, rice is probably the most important grain with regards to human nutrition and caloric intake, providing more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by the human species. A traditional food plant in Africa, rice has the potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable landcare. In early 2008, some governments and retailers began rationing supplies of the grain due to fears of a global rice shortage.
The name wild rice is usually used for species of the grass genus Zizania, both wild and domesticated, although the term may also be used for primitive or uncultivated varieties of Oryza.
Rice is normally grown as an annual plant, although in tropical areas it can survive as a perennial and can produce a ratoon crop for up to 20 years. The rice plant can grow to 1–1.8 m tall, occasionally more depending on the variety and soil fertility. The grass has long, slender leaves 50–100 cm long and 2–2.5 cm broad. The small wind-pollinated flowers are produced in a branched arching to pendulous inflorescence 30–50 cm long. The edible seed is a grain (caryopsis) 5–12 mm long and 2–3 mm thick.
Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low labor costs and high rainfall, as it is very labor-intensive to cultivate and requires plenty of water for cultivation. Rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a steep hill or mountain. Although its parent species are native to South Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade and exportation have made it commonplace in many cultures worldwide.
The traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields while, or after, setting the young seedlings. This simple method requires sound planning and servicing of the water damming and channeling, but reduces the growth of less robust weed and pest plants that have no submerged growth state, and deters vermin. While with rice growing and cultivation the flooding is not mandatory, all other methods of irrigation require higher effort in weed and pest control during growth periods and a different approach for fertilizing the soil.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA