By combining genetic data with the results of skin prick tests in allergic patients, more insight has been gained into the involvement of specific allergen genes in apple allergy. For his thesis at Wageningen University, Zhongshan Gao identified and localised genes which are involved in the allergenicity. The results represent a step forward in the identification, breeding and development of low allergenic apple varieties.
Approximately 2% of the West-European population has
Scientists at the University of Nottingham are working with researchers in Mexico to develop new varieties of wheat that could combine the best characteristics of British and Mexican types to bring about a quantum leap in yield while increasing the sustainability of UK agriculture.
The researchers are collaborating with the International Centre for Wheat and Maize Improvement (CIMMYT), a relationship strengthened by a recent workshop in Mexico supported by the Biotechnology and
Identification of soils that inhibit a tiny soybean-destroying organism is an important tool in reducing yield losses, according to a Purdue University plant pathologist.
Soybean cyst nematodes cause between $800 million and $1 billion annually in crop losses in the United States, according the American Phytopathological Society. However, techniques are available to find soils that specifically suppress these microscopic roundworms, said Andreas Westphal, assistant professor of p
UK scientists have identified bioactive plant chemicals in the most practical of staple foods, the potato. These natural chemicals have been associated with reduced blood pressure and they selectively affect a chemotherapeutic target for trypanosomes and similar diseases such as sleeping sickness.
“Potatoes have been cultivated for thousands of years, and we thought traditional crops were pretty well understood”, says food scientist Dr Fred Mellon from the Institute of Food Res
Researchers in the Department of Agricultural Production at the Public University of Navarra have been awarded the prize for the best research in the area of viticulture. The presentation took place at the V Iberian Congress of Horticultural Science recently held in Oporto (Portugal). The awarded work, entitled “Recovery of photosynthetic activity in 4 grape varieties after a hydric stress event”, studied the response to the hydric stress event of the grape, in order to enable suitable land irrig
Scientists will today explain to a meeting in London how their research has greatly improved our understanding of the flow of genetic material between organisms in the environment. Outcomes from the Gene Flow in Plants and Microorganisms Initiative, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), will be valuable in informing the future of both conventional and GM crops.
The outcomes of the initiativ
In response to the discovery of soybean rust in the U.S., plant pathologists are offering an opportunity to learn more about this disease at a symposium held during the annual meeting of The American Phytopathological Society (APS), July 30 – August 3, 2005 in Austin, TX.
“This is the first year that farmers in the U.S. are facing soybean rust and we have a lot of questions that need to be resolved,” said Vince Morton, soybean rust symposium organizer and president of Viva, Inc.,
“There is great potential for Mid Sweden University to be one of the world’s leading departments of ecotechnology,” writes Arto Usenius, professor at VTT-Technical Research Center of Finland, in his external assessment of the first phase of Mid Sweden University’s project “More Efficient Use of Forests.”
Within the framework of the project “More Efficient Use of Forests” researchers are investigating and promoting the possibility of replacing the consumption of finite resources
MTT Agrifood Research Finland has identified in a collaboration with the German Institute for Animal Breeding Mariensee (Federal Agricultural Research Centre, FAL) and Lohmann Tierzucht GmbH a genetic defect, which impairs the quality of brown eggs by producing a fishy odour. The MTT research team has also developed an efficient procedure to test for the defect. Lohmann Tierzucht (LTZ), one of the world’s largest chicken breeding companies, has already begun to apply this procedure, and marke
Researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered that chickens raised for meat can choose whether or not they’ll funnel the nutrients they eat towards themselves or their eggs.
That phenomenon of ’reproductive attitude’ is a headache for producers who must figure out how to deal with less productive hens that “partition” nutrients needed for egg production into their own bodies. “They like to be a little bit more selfish with their nutrients, and continue g
If you see men crawling around in the neighbour’s garden at dusk wearing headlights, it may well be that they are researchers hunting for Spanish slugs.
Spanish slugs were previously seen as a garden nuisance, but now they have started to become a serious problem also for commercial horticulture, affecting strawberries and cabbage. A glaring example is garden owners in Hordaland county, who has had up to hundred thousand slugs in their garden, while a lot of strawberry and cabbage
Western corn rootworm can chew through as much as $1 billion yearly due to lost production and treatment costs across the corn belt.
But two Texas Agricultural Experiment Station entomologists think they can reduce these losses with a new model to predict and better target the pests.
The model developed by Dr. Jerry Michels, Experiment Station entomologist in Bushland, and Dr. Marvin Harris, Experiment Station entomologist in College Station, is based on temperature an
Forest landowners can greatly increase the survival rate of pine tree seedlings by changing when and how they plant, according to research conducted here. “There’s been too many (reforestation) failures over the last decade or so,” said Dr. Eric Taylor, Texas Cooperative Extension forestry specialist. “Some landowners have had to replant two, three or even four years in a row because of poor seedling survival.”
Second-year data from an ongoing comparison of planting methods sho
The accession to the European Union (EU) ten years ago was for the Finnish agriculture and food sector an unprecedented rapid shift from closed and regulated markets to open and more competitive ones. Finnish farmers faced a change in output prices, relative prices and direct support which were of exceptional magnitude compared to that of any other country which had ever joined the EU. Commitment to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) lowered the producer price level in Finland by 40-50% ri
The only sugar beets growing in Texas are in the laboratory. But those few plants are getting to the root of problems throughout the sugar beet industry.
The sugar beet industry moved out of Texas in 1997 after the close of the processing plant at Hereford. But the growing research program within Texas Agricultural Experiment Station’s plant pathology lab here didn’t die.
Just the opposite, said Dr. Charlie Rush, professor and director of the plant pathology labs in Bus
Dutch researcher Daniël van den Broek investigated bacteria which fight fungal infections in plants. Spontaneous variations in the phase of these bacteria reduce the anti-fungal protective function but increase the bacteria’s competitive advantage and with this their chances of survival.
Scientists worldwide are looking for biological alternatives to chemical pesticides in order to protect crops against pathogens. One of these is the use of bacteria which protect plants, fo
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