crop resistance News
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Arizona Company Bolsters Expertise In Soil Health
“We have spent the last 10 years at Heliae, working on solutions in microalgae, providing food to the bacteria in the soil, stimulating the microbiome. This relentless focus on researching soil microbiology has uniquely positioned Heliae capable of detecting and addressing soil concerns for the next 50 years. A feat only possible through the expertise and dedication of our people.” ...
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New DeltaLINK Software Enables GP2 Logger to Calculate Full ASCE Penman-Monteith Equation – Improving Evapotranspiration Data Accuracy
The latest release of Delta-T Devices’ DeltaLINK Software (v3.7), in combination with its GP2 Data Logger and relevant sensors, enables the full ASCE/FAO-56 Penman-Monteith equation for calculating reference evapotranspiration (ETo). This enhancement also applies to the WS-GP2 Weather Station – an advanced research-grade system. ETo is calculated by the GP2 Data Logger using the ...
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Overcoming obstacles to GM crop adoption
This policy brief, published by the UK's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST), examines the potential benefits and challenges of using genetically modified (GM) crops for agricultural development in the developing world, and highlights policy approaches that could support a positive contribution to food security. With the majority of the workforce in developing countries ...
By SciDev.Net
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Crossbreeding GM crops may increase fitness of wild relatives
A new study has investigated the effects of interbreeding a genetically modified squash crop with its wild relative. The findings demonstrate that it could cause wild or weedy relatives to become more resistant to disease. Genetic Modification (GM) can be used to develop crops that are resistant to specific pests. However, there are concerns that if a GM crop interbreeds with its wild or weedy ...
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Farmers Urged to Consider Impact Of Pesticides on Insect Numbers
Farmers are continually urged to store pesticides safely and securely in order to minimise their impact on the environment and to reduce leakage into water supplies and systems. A study by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), with support from Natural England, examined 40 year’s worth of data collected on farmland on the Susses Downs. Examining the effect of climate and ...
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U.S. Government to spend $3.2 million to help monarch butterfly
The federal government on Monday pledged $3.2 million to help save the monarch butterfly, the iconic orange-and-black butterfly that can migrate thousands of miles between the U.S. and Mexico each year. In recent years, the species has experienced a 90 percent decline in population, with the lowest recorded population occurring in 2013-2014. About $2 million will restore more than 200,000 acres ...
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GM crops could reduce need for herbicides
Analysis of large-scale European field trial data reveals that lower quantities of herbicides are applied to crops genetically modified for herbicide-resistance compared with conventionally grown crops. However, the data also suggest that biodiversity may be reduced if genetically modified (GM) crops are grown widely. Transgenic crops are currently grown in 22 countries across the world, ...
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Mexican trial of GM maize stirs debate
Mexico has authorised a field trial of genetically modified (GM) maize that could lead directly to commercialisation of the crop, sparking debate about the effects on the country's unique maize biodiversity. Although Mexico already commercially grows some GM crops, such as cotton, GM maize is controversial because the country is home to thousands of the world's maize varieties that originated ...
By SciDev.Net
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Chile, India link up for rural development
Chile and India will work together to promote agricultural innovation and explore the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in improving rural livelihoods. The MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) signed an agreement on agricultural cooperation with Chile's Foundation for Agricultural Innovation (FIA) in Chennai last month (20 March). MSSRF chairman M. S. ...
By SciDev.Net
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The effectiveness of Humate GreenOK winter wheat
In order to increase the yields of the crop, traditionally around the world special attention is paid to nutrition regulation issues. It is therefore necessary to study and develop methods to improve productivity and quality of agricultural products without increasing the rate of fertilizer. One of these techniques is “biological correction” of plant growth, which focused on ...
By GreenOK
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NRDC Petitions EPA to Save the Monarch Butterfly
Skyrocketing use of the weed-killer glyphosate, first marketed as “Roundup,” is devastating monarch butterfly populations, and new safeguards should be put in place immediately to save the iconic species from further decline, the Natural Resources Defense Council said today. In a petition filed with the Environmental Protection Agency, NRDC said current uses of glyphosate are causing ...
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Fight against wheat rust needs sustained investment
Developing countries need help with crop surveillance and the development of strains resistant to wheat rust, say agricultural research leaders. Today's food security situation is being worsened by strains of wheat rust disease that are emerging more frequently and spreading much faster and to new areas — changes fuelled by climate change and conducive environments in increasingly fragile ...
By SciDev.Net
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GM eggplant trials suspended in Philippines
Field trials of genetically modified (GM) eggplant have been suspended following a dispute at one of the trial sites that led local officials to uproot 3,000 plants. Two of seven field trials of the plant — also known as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) brinjal — were halted last month (29 December), two weeks after local authorities in Davao City uprooted plants because researchers had ...
By SciDev.Net
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Agricultural biotechnology `should be open source`
Open source biotechnology, through which biotechnology inventions are made freely available for others to use and improve upon, could help developing countries overcome hurdles created by stringent intellectual property rights (IPRs), a study says. The concept is based on open source in software development. To date, open source software's free accessibility, low cost, openness to modification ...
By SciDev.Net
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Some but not all plants can defend themselves against disease on saline soil
Some plants with resistance against a specific disease are also able to defend themselves effectively when they are stressed due to, for example, drought or saline soil. At the same time, the resistance of other plants no longer functions in these very same conditions. Although this had been assumed for some time, Wageningen scientist Christos Kissoudis is the first person to show why. As a ...
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Farming needs `sustainable intensification` says report
The quest to feed the world's rapidly growing population over the next 40 years needs a frontloaded approach to funding agricultural research, according to a report on food security released today (24 January). New science and technologies are among the tools needed to achieve a huge 'sustainable intensification' of agriculture aimed at feeding the nine billion people expected to inhabit the ...
By SciDev.Net
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Farming in cities could help feed the world
With traditional food production under threat from climate change, we should switch from agriculture to cell culture, says Lucía Atehortúa. If climate change begins to limit the global production of food and energy crops, it will be necessary to develop a new system of food production. Imagine agriculture in small spaces, using high-tech tools such as photo-bioreactors, generating ...
By SciDev.Net
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British GMO protests highlight global divide
British opposition to genetically modified crops is on the rise, prompting security concerns at research laboratories across the country. Nearly all 54 U.K. pesticide-resistant crop trials attempted in the past eight years have been attacked, according to media reports. Protesters are destroying the experimental crops to prevent biotechnology companies from spreading genetically modified ...
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Decision could boost use of popular weed killer
Faced with tougher and more resistant weeds, corn and soybean farmers are anxiously awaiting government decisions on a new version of a popular herbicide - and on genetically modified seeds to grow crops designed to resist it. Critics say more study is needed on the effects of the herbicide and they are concerned it could endanger public health. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected ...
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Microbes `cheaper, fairer` for boosting yields than GM
Adapting microbes that dramatically increase crop yields while reducing demand for fertilisers and pesticides through selective breeding or genetic engineering could be cheaper and more flexible than genetically modifying plants themselves, says an author of a report. Microbes, such as beneficial bacteria, fungi and viruses, could be produced locally for smallholder farmers to significantly ...
By SciDev.Net
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