Rooting News
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EPA Announces Settlement of Three Pesticides Enforcement Actions
The Environmental Protection Agency announced three enforcement actions against Missouri pesticides distributors for violations related to sales or distribution of unregistered and misbranded pesticides. All three cases involved the sale and distribution of plant growth regulators, which are regulated as pesticides by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). FIFRA defines ...
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Knox Nursery Earns Veriflora® Certification for its Sustainable Growing Practices
Knox Nursery, a top 100 young plant producer and finished annual grower, recently received Veriflora Certification for its sustainable growing practices. The 150 million young plants and 6 million 4-inch annuals the company produces each year are now Veriflora certified. "Knox Nursery is pleased to join the Veriflora program as a continuation of our commitment to environmental ...
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Root-imaging technology could improve crop resilience
Mexican researchers have welcomed a breakthrough in imaging plant roots, saying it could help breeders develop new varieties of crops that can thrive in harsh conditions. The technique uses X-ray computed tomography to build up a three-dimensional image by scanning through 360 degrees, a technology commonly used in hospitals to diagnose soft tissue damage. Scans of plant roots in soil show the ...
By SciDev.Net
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Students get a feel for soil-water relationships
Using little more than PVC rings, a trashcan, and a scale, students can literally get a feel for soil water retention and field capacity, concepts that are important and useful in fields from farming to engineering. The demonstration, developed by Adam Howard, Drs. Josh Heitman and Dan Bowman of North Carolina State University, was designed to illustrate concepts that can be difficult for ...
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Maize seedlings predict drought Tolerance
Scientists have developed a new method for measuring drought tolerance in maize. By comparing the shoot-to-root ratio in seedlings stressed by low water, scientists can predict whether a plant has the right mix of genes for adapting to drought conditions. The ideal drought-resistant maize should have a higher ratio of root surface area compared to leaves and stems. Developing enough adult plants ...
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Eco friendly advice for healthy lawns and greenscapes (PA)
Beautiful lawns are a big part of summer, but the average lawn can eat up your free time and cost a bundle to maintain. Going with eco-friendly methods can actually save you time and money, and help the environment. A thick, full lawn reduces soil erosion, filters contaminants from rainwater and absorbs airborne pollutants like dust and soot. Grass is also great at converting carbon dioxide to ...
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Solar-powered irrigation improves food security in West Africa
Solar-powered irrigation that delivers water directly to plant roots could help ensure food security in Africa, say researchers. Their study in the Sudano-Sahel region of West Africa indicated that this irrigation method could increase both household income and nutritional intake, particularly during the dry season. The food supply in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa is considered insecure in ...
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Recipients of the 2010 G.A. Harris Instrumentation Fellowship
PULLMAN, WASHINGTON/MARCH 2010-Decagon Devices, an environmental instrumentation company in Pullman, Washington, announced the names of ten graduate students receiving over $30,000 through the G.A. Harris Instrumentation Fellowship. The Grant A. Harris Research Instruments fellowship provides ten awards for up to $5,000 worth of Decagon research instruments to graduate students studying any ...
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Reinforcement of soil by plant roots
Landslides have devastating impacts across the globe resulting in the loss of life and the destruction of billions of dollars in infrastructure. Soil erosion from wind and water threatens food production, pollutes the environment, and can make living in major cities such as Beijing almost unbearable during dust storms. Just like the great dust bowl of the 1930s, many instances of soil erosion and ...
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Czech and Korean researchers clinch biomass patent
A Czech-South Korean research team has obtained a patent on a new method supporting plant biomass production which will also allow the cultivation of plants with a bigger biomass production. Both the food-processing and pharmaceutical industries can, in theory, use the patent, according to the team. 'The invention, which enables the cultivation of plants with an increased production of mass, ...
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Czech and Korean researchers clinch biomass patent
A Czech-South Korean research team has obtained a patent on a new method supporting plant biomass production which will also allow the cultivation of plants with a bigger biomass production. Both the food-processing and pharmaceutical industries can, in theory, use the patent, according to the team. 'The invention, which enables the cultivation of plants with an increased production of mass, ...
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Engineering rice that needs less fertiliser
Genetic modification (GM) of crops is one of the more recent technological advances in agriculture designed to meet increasing demand for food. New research reveals that rice can be modified to use nitrogen more efficiently, thus reducing the need for nitrogen fertilisers while increasing yields. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has estimated that food production ...
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Grass strips help curb erosion, herbicide transport
Grass filter strips placed in riparian zones not only curb soil erosion, but can help block and degrade the widely used herbicide atrazine, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists report. Atrazine has been used extensively to suppress weeds in corn production for decades, but because it's applied directly to soil it's especially prone to losses in surface runoff. The contamination of ...
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Earthworms decompose GM maize
Pest-resistant genetically modified (GM) maize makes up an increasing proportion of maize grown commercially in the EU. A new study shows that earthworms may help break down the toxins produced by GM maize. GM maize (Bt-maize) plants are engineered to produce 'cry' proteins that are toxic to the European corn borer, a major insect pest responsible for corn crop losses. Recent studies have shown ...
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Saltwater solution to save crops
Technology under development at the University of New South Wales could offer new hope to farmers in drought-affected and marginal areas by enabling crops to grow using salty groundwater. Associate Professor Greg Leslie, a chemical engineer at UNSW's UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology, is working with the University of Sydney on technology which uses reverse-osmosis membranes to ...
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Getting to the root of plants
A diverse team of researchers from Europe, Asia and the USA have unearthed new information on how roots grow and develop. Specifically, how roots are able to move out sideways out of the central root and into the soil. Their discovery has opened the way to further research that may eventually lead to the creation of new crops with improved root structure, improving their chances of survival in ...
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Where is your soil water? Crop yield has the answer
Crop yield is highly dependent on soil plant-available water, the portion of soil water that can be taken up by plant roots. Quantitative determination of the maximum amount of plant-available water in soil using traditional methods on soil samples remains challenging, especially at the scale of an entire field. However, a map of plant-available water capacity for a field would be instrumental in ...
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Technika Introduces Digital Soil Moisture Pen
Probe your soil (or similar material) with the simple-to-use Digital Soil Moisture Pen – LUPMS714. The pen has a large 1.25” digital display that enables highly accurate, high resolution readings. It also features a hold and min-max function, and indicates when the batteries need to be replaced. The Digital Soil Moisture Pen comes in a portable and durable water resistant ABS-plastic housing. ...
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