Agriculture
Superheated Steam Drying Turns Coconut Waste Into Safer, Whiter Functional Food Ingredient
Every year, the global coconut industry generates enormous quantities of press cake, the fibrous solid left behind after coconut milk...
Diverse Farms Bring Better Diets to Rural Ethiopia, but Seasonal Hunger Persists
In the highlands and lowlands of rural Ethiopia, what a family grows on its own plot may matter more to...
Fulvic Acid Sprays Shield Wheat From Glyphosate Drift Damage
Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used herbicide, and its spread does not always stop at the edge of the...
Green Manure Timing Holds Key to Richer Rice Soils and Bigger Yields
Rice feeds more people on Earth than almost any other crop, and nowhere is that dependence more pronounced than in...
Hidden Blueprint in Aphid Proteins Shows How Evolution Can Rescue AI Structure Prediction
Aphids are among the most quietly destructive forces in agriculture, draining sap from crops and manipulating the very plants they...
Simple Microscope Test Reveals Which Ancient Plant Spores Are Truly Alive
Deep in the mountains of Central Europe, a small, evergreen clubmoss known as Huperzia selago has become the unlikely star...
How Brazil’s Heat-Proof Hybrid Dairy Cows Spend Their Energy Across a Full Lactation
Across the tropical dairy belts of Brazil, one particular cow has quietly become the backbone of the national milk supply....
Salicylic Acid Spray Keeps Daisy Mandarins From Splitting on the Tree
Few things are as disheartening for a citrus grower as walking through an orchard in the weeks before harvest and...
Scientists Uncover the Enzyme Behind the Sweet Scent of Plum Blossoms
The intoxicating winter fragrance of the Japanese apricot, Prunus mume, has captivated poets and perfumers for centuries, yet the molecular...
AI Steps In to Guard the World’s Food Supply From Farm to Fork
Every year, contaminated food sickens more than one in ten people worldwide and is estimated to cause over 4.2 million...
Mediterranean Herb Extract Boosts Cooking Yield in Beef Patties, Study Finds
A humble Mediterranean herb long used in herbal teas and traditional remedies is now being positioned as a candidate for...
AI With an Eye for Detail Catches the Palm-Killing Weevils That Humans Miss
The red palm weevil is a silent assassin of palm trees. Its larvae tunnel deep inside the trunk, devouring the...
Maize Meristem Genes Offer New Clues to the Molecular Roots of Hybrid Yield
Every ear of corn is a record of thousands of microscopic decisions. As the maize plant builds its female inflorescence,...
Wild Emmer Genes Could Help Breed Bigger, Better Durum Wheat
Durum wheat, the grain behind pasta, couscous, and countless other staples, just got a genetic boost from an unexpected ally:...
How Seeds Cheat Time: Redox Control, DNA Repair, and Protective Proteins Hold the Key to Longevity
Some seeds refuse to die. Date palm seeds recovered from Herod’s Palace near Jerusalem, roughly 2,000 years old, have been...
How Silicon Helps a Hardy Millet Beat Salt Stress at the Gene Level
Soil salinity is quietly strangling agriculture. Around the world, roughly a fifth of all irrigated farmland is now affected by...
Forest soil viruses may dampen how strongly microbes respire as temperatures rise
Beneath every forest floor, an invisible war and an uneasy truce unfold simultaneously. Bacteriophages, the viruses that infect soil bacteria,...
High-testing soils still starve potatoes of phosphorus, three-year study reveals
In the sandy potato fields of northeast Florida, a simple soil test has long promised to answer one question: does...
Smart Sensors Slash Water and Fertilizer Use in Eggplant Fields Without Yield Loss
A team of Bangladeshi agricultural researchers has shown that an Internet of Things (IoT) enabled, sensor-driven drip irrigation system can...
More Minerals, Less Carbon? Texas Farmland Study Upends a Soil Science Assumption
For decades, one of the most intuitive ideas in soil science has been that more reactive minerals in the ground...