Plants produce a range of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds that influence their interactions with the world around them. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have investigated ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 24, 2024
0
126
For tens of thousands of years, evolution shaped tomatoes through natural mutations. Then, humans came along.
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 19, 2023
0
184
According to a study published in Nature Plants, Chinese scientists have elucidated the mechanism of fruit shape formation in tomatoes and have developed fresh tomatoes for mechanical harvesting.
Biotechnology
Sep 21, 2023
0
13
In 2011 Jim Myers did something no one had done before. The Oregon State University vegetable breeder released the first purple tomato containing the same healthy compound found in blueberries.
Biotechnology
Apr 23, 2023
2
1793
Botanists and paleontologists, led by researchers from CU Boulder, have identified a fossil chili pepper that may rewrite the geography and evolutionary timeline of the tomato plant family.
Evolution
Apr 20, 2023
0
3535
Urban agriculture is booming, but there's often a hidden danger lurking in city soils: lead. A recent University of Illinois study showed universally elevated lead levels in soils across Chicago, an urban ag hotspot.
Plants & Animals
Jul 21, 2022
0
1024
Genetic modification has made modern tomatoes more disease resistant and shelf-stable. While those traits are important, modern commercial varieties tend to fall short of the flavor potential shown in older varieties. But ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 7, 2022
0
21
Buying tomatoes and other fruits in the grocery store is always a gamble because, however good they look, they are often firm but lack flavor. A group of plant scientists has discovered a gene that could increase the odds ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 19, 2021
1
117
Tomato plants are especially vulnerable to foliar diseases that can kill them or impact yield. These problems require a number of pesticides in conventional crops and make organic production especially difficult.
Plants & Animals
Jan 14, 2021
1
999
Thousands of years ago, people in South America began domesticating Solanum pimpinellifolium, a weedy plant with small, intensely flavored fruit. Over time, the plant evolved into S. lycopersicum—the modern cultivated tomato.
Ecology
Dec 1, 2020
1
805
