Agricultural and Forestry Science

One of the most damaging crop pests, the corn earworm, may be outwitting efforts to control it by making structural changes in a single metabolic protein, but new insights uncovered by molecular modeling could pave the way for more efficient insecticides, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In a study that compared the ability of corn earworms (Helicoverpa zea) and black swallowtail butterflies (Papilio polyxenes) to neutralize insecticides and plant defense a

The artichoke grown in Navarre, the Blanca de Tudela, appears earlier, is the most productive and has a greater industrial and agricultural yield than the rest of the varieties of this plant. This is the conclusion of researcher Juan Ignacio Macua González in his PhD thesis defended at the Public University of Navarre.

Navarre, nucleus of cultivation and supply

In Spain there are some 20,000 hectares given over to the cultivation of the artichoke. This surface area is fundame

Researchers at Oregon State University have created purple-fruited tomatoes that include anthocyanins – the same class of health-promoting pigments in red wine that function as antioxidants and are believed to prevent heart disease.

Their research is featured as the cover story in the latest issue of the Journal of Heredity.

Domestic tomato varieties grown and consumed in the United States do not normally produce fruit containing any anthocyanin, explained Jim Myers, OSU’s Ba

Drugs based on CSIRO’s research into the influenza virus have been shown to be effective, in laboratory tests, against a sample of an H5N1 influenza virus currently infecting chickens in Asia.

CSIRO Health Sciences and Nutrition scientist, Dr Jenny McKimm-Breschkin, has tested the ability of the flu drug Relenza™ to inhibit the virus, known as H5N1 strain, which has killed millions of chickens in Asia and has been responsible for several human deaths this year.

The tests, used to m

An increase in the spread of rust diseases could have devastating results on the fast-growing ornamental crop industry, say pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS).

The U.S. ornamental plant industry, which includes deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs, cut flowers, and foliage and flowering potted plants, grew in value to $14.3 billion in 2002. Geranium, chrysanthemum, gladiolus, and daylily are just a few of the many crops produced in the U.S.

According t

Most agronomists look to their laboratories, greenhouses or research farms for innovative new cropping techniques. But Jane Mt. Pleasant, professor of horticulture and director of the American Indian Program at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., has taken a different path, mining her Iroquois heritage for planting and cultivation methods that work for today’s farmers.

Mt. Pleasant studies what traditionally are known as the “three sisters”: beans, corn and squash. These staples of Iroqu