The Center for Digital Agriculture showcased the many advancements in digital agriculture during its annual conference. When the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA) launched in 2018, they were looking forward to the future. Like many other areas of commerce and big tech, agriculture is a rapidly changing industry. Advancements in technology have transformed farming. In the five-plus years since its launch, CDA has risen to meet those needs by creating adaptable, interdisciplinary curriculums, research programs, industry partnerships and training opportunities for…
An international team of researchers discovers how microbes boost root growth. Tiny organisms such as bacteria and fungi help to promote the health and function of plant roots. It is commonly assumed that the composition of these microbes is dependent on the properties of the soil. However, an international team of researchers led by the University of Bonn has now discovered when studying different local varieties of maize that the genetic makeup of the plants also helps to influence which…
Amidst challenges like a booming global population and diminishing arable land, plant phenotyping offers a way to automate agriculture and improve crop diagnostics. However, translating the precision of controlled-environment phenotyping to field conditions remains a hurdle, particularly in accurately measuring leaf color due to sunlight glare. Existing solutions, ranging from light scattering simulations to 3D sensor fusion, often require complex, time-consuming, or impractical methods. In March 2024, Plant Phenomics published a research article entitled by “Mitigating Illumination-, Leaf-, and View-Angle…
…to outsmart treatments and adapt to new environments. A new study published in PNAS sheds light on how bacterial plant pathogens, like Pseudomonas syringae, rapidly evolve resistance to antibiotics and adapt to changing environments. This is particularly concerning as copper-based antimicrobials are commonly used in agriculture to control these very pathogens. The study reveals a previously unknown mechanism by which these bacteria gain new abilities due to mobile genetic elements called Integrative and Conjugative Elements (ICEs). Researchers identified a new…
EU-Project FORTUNA: The new European project, coordinated by JKI, points out how agronomic research supports the transformation of agriculture after 2030. The main goal of the EU Farm-to-Fork Strategy is to reduce the overall use and risk of pesticides by 50 per cent by 2030. The Horizon Europe project ‘FORTUNA – Future Innovation for Pesticide Use Reduction in Agriculture’ is a three-year initiative that seeks to identify knowledge gaps and challenges in plant protection beyond 2030, highlighting the need for…
Fabricated ecosystems created at Berkeley Lab will expedite microbiome research, and help underrepresented students in the classroom. A greater understanding of how plants and microbes work together to store vast amounts of atmospheric carbon in the soil will help in the design of better bioenergy crops for the fight against climate change. Deciphering the mechanics of this mutually beneficial relationship is challenging, however, as conditions in nature are extremely difficult for scientists to replicate in the laboratory. To address this…
To ensure that plants flower at the right time of year, they possess an internal clock, which enables them to measure the amount of daylight during a day. In a study published in the scientific journal Plant Physiology, biologists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) describe that the mutation of a specific gene makes the flowering time of barley almost entirely independent of day length. This mutation can be useful for breeding varieties adapted to altered climatic conditions with relatively…
New research finds that fungi that live in healthy plants are sensitive to climate change. Findings more than a decade in the making reveal a rich diversity of beneficial fungi living in boreal forest trees, with implications for the health of forests. Spruce, pine, fir and other trees tower across the frigid swaths of land that span North America, northern Europe and Russia in a great ring around the world. These boreal forests constitute the largest land ecosystem and the…
Mizzou’s new Digital Agriculture Research and Extension Center will enhance research, education and outreach in emerging digital technologies for farming. Nearly one-third of Missouri’s economy is tied to agriculture. That’s why the state’s flagship land-grant institution, the University of Missouri, has launched the Digital Agriculture Research and Extension Center (DAREC). The center aims to help farmers and other agricultural producers move toward a future of sustainable agriculture by leveraging emerging digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) for increased agricultural productivity,…
Poison ivy ranks among the most medically problematic plants. Up to 50 million people worldwide suffer annually from rashes caused by contact with the plant, a climbing, woody vine native to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Western Bahamas and several areas in Asia. It’s found on farms, in woods, landscapes, fields, hiking trails and other open spaces. So, if you go to those places, you’re susceptible to irritation caused by poison ivy, which can lead to reactions that…
An international research team including a Bayreuth scientist and her research group has investigated the links between extreme drought, biodiversity and production losses on a global scale. With the help of a worldwide experiment at 100 locations on six continents, they have identified Biodiversity in grassland is an effective protection against crop failure during droughts. The study has now been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Grassland and open land cover more than 40% of the Earth’s…
Barley seedlings grow on average 50% more when their root system is stimulated electrically through a new cultivation substrate. In a study published in the journal PNAS, researchers from Linköping University have developed an electrically conductive “soil” for soilless cultivation, known as hydroponics. “The world population is increasing, and we also have climate change. So it’s clear that we won’t be able to cover the food demands of the planet with only the already existing agricultural methods. But with hydroponics…
‘CountShoots’ unveils advanced UAV and AI techniques for precise slash pine shoot counting. In southern China, the genetically improved slash pine (Pinus elliottii) plays a crucial role in timber and resin production, with new shoot density being a key growth trait. Current manual counting methods are inefficient and inaccurate. Emerging technologies such as UAV-based RGB imaging and deep learning (DL) offer promising solutions. However, DL methods face challenges in global feature capture, necessitating additional mechanisms. Innovations like the Vision Transformer and its derivatives (e.g., TransCrowd,…
Until now, reliably tracing logs to their origin has been difficult to achieve. Researchers at Fraunhofer IPM and their partners have now shown that logs and trunk sections can be identified based on the structure of the cut surfaces. The recent research project developed a marker-free and tamper-proof method. The optical method allows up to 100 percent recognition – even under the rough environment conditions of the timber industry. Hochaufgelöst aufgenommen wird die spezifische Mikrostruktur von Sägeflächen erkennbar. Die Kamera-Aufnahmen…
Plants in which an ion channel of the vacuole is hyperactive are extremely stressed and grow poorly. But the broad bean is an exception, as Würzburg researchers have discovered. Like the human body, plants also use electrical signals to process and pass on information. In addition to the cell membrane, the membrane of the central vacuole plays an important role in this process. Vacuoles are typical for plant cells. They are fluid-filled bladders that act as a reservoir for minerals…
At low temperatures, the nutritional value and taste of kale change – in different ways depending on the variety. In a recently published study, a team of researchers from Oldenburg and Bremen report that the concentration of glucosinolates, which are responsible for the typical taste of kale, increases in some varieties when it gets cold, but decreases in others. Kale is considered particularly healthy due, among other things, to its high secondary plant compound content, including the glucosinolates that give…
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