22+ hour, 44+ min ago   (55+ words) As heat waves grow longer and more punishing across the world’s tomato-growing regions, scientists have been racing to understand how this beloved crop copes when temperatures climb past the point of comfort. Now, a team of researchers at Yunnan Agricultural…...

22+ hour, 46+ min ago   (69+ words) A devastating bacterial pathogen that travels inside the bodies of tiny psyllid insects has long puzzled plant scientists: two closely related strains can infect the same tomato plant, yet one leaves it stunted while the other kills it outright. A…...

22+ hour, 46+ min ago   (80+ words) Bacterial wilt, caused by the soil-borne pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum, is one of the most destructive plant diseases in the world, striking tomatoes, potatoes, bananas and hundreds of other crops. Once the bacterium establishes itself in a field, it is notoriously…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago   (587+ words) A team of researchers in China has sequenced the first complete mitochondrial genome of the jumping plant louse Bactericera gobica and, by combining it with nearly every other Triozidae mitogenome available, assembled the most comprehensive genetic dataset ever compiled for…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago   (91+ words) Global agriculture is locked in a widening battle against pests, pathogens, and invasive species, and a sweeping new review argues that artificial intelligence has moved from a promising experiment to the central organizing technology of modern plant health management. Writing…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago   (69+ words) Transgenic technology has quietly reshaped agriculture across the world since the mid-1990s, moving desirable genes into crop plants across the barriers of sexual compatibility and, in doing so, accelerating the development of new cultivars beyond what conventional breeding alone can achieve....

1+ day, 1+ hour ago   (679+ words) A team of researchers in Peru has built a system that can fly a drone over a Hass avocado orchard and, in real time, tell a farmer not only where every visible fruit is hanging but also how ripe each…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago   (74+ words) Rice feeds more than half of humanity, yet its two great subspecies have taken strikingly different evolutionary paths when it comes to fighting one of its most destructive diseases. A recent commentary published in Stress Biology by Yachun Su, Shoujian…...

1+ day, 2+ hour ago   (83+ words) Quinoa has earned its reputation as one of the most resilient and nutritious crops on the planet, thriving in salty soils, high altitudes and arid conditions while delivering a rare, complete plant protein. Yet the same ancient grain that feeds…...

1+ day, 3+ hour ago   (96+ words) A sweeping genetic investigation of more than 1,200 elite bread wheat lines has delivered one of the clearest pictures yet of how wheat can defend itself against spot blotch, a destructive fungal disease that thrives in the warm, humid wheat belts…...