Today, the “Plants for the Future” European Technology Platform on plant genomics and biotechnology, launches a new era for plant biotechnology in Europe.
This long term vision for 2025 has been created by leading representatives from research (such as EPSO, the European Plant Science Organisation), the food and biotech industry (such as EuropaBio, CIAA, ESA), the farming community (such as COPA/COGECA) and consumer organisations (BEUC). The vision document has been presented to Euro
UK scientists are warning that world chocolate production could fall dramatically if diseases, which have devastated South American cultivation of cacao over the past 15 years (the raw material used for producing chocolate), were to spread to some of the world’s other cacao producing regions.
Writing in the Summer 2004 edition of Biologist, Dr Gareth Griffith of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth warns that increased trade and improved transport links between South America and other caca
There’s nothing worse than a satellite that can’t make decisions.
Rather than organizing data, it simply spews out everything it collects, swamping scientists with huge amounts of information. It’s like getting a newspaper with no headlines or section pages in which all the stories are strung together end-to-end.
Researchers at the University of Arizona (UA), Arizona State University (ASU) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are working to solve this problem by develo
Research indicates that wood chip bedding can be an economic alternative to straw bedding for beef cattle without increasing greenhouse gas emissions during the manure handling process.
Research from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) suggests that wood chip bedding for beef cattle can be an economic alternative to straw bedding, without increasing greenhouse gas emissions during the manure handling process.
Composting is gaining rapid acceptance by the beef cattle industry
European-funded research projects to reduce aircraft noise and fuel consumption are now running at full speed. Included is one of Europe’s largest-ever noise-reduction research ventures, known as SILENCE(R). A consortium of 51 companies is testing new technologies to reduce aircraft noise by up to 6 decibels (dB) by 2008, with the EU contributing half the funding for SILENCE(R), with a total budget over €110 million. Other significant initiatives include FRIENDCOPTER, to reduce helicopter engine and
Peaches and nectarines sprayed with a calcium, magnesium and titanium-containing formulation increases fruit firmness and lifespan, according to new research published in Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
Spanish researchers found that applying these natural compounds to peach and nectarine trees pre-harvest gives dramatic improvements in quality; but “the safety is assured totally, and no residues are expected which could be harmful for consumers or environment”, says Dr. Dan
Optimising and standardising trials on the resistance of orchard fruit to the harvesting and picking processes, increasingly used to determine quality, was the aim of the PhD presented by Martín Sanmartín Goñi at the en Public University of Navarre.
Handling and conservation
The harvesting, transport and conservation of fruit and garden produce is currently carried out mechanically. In these processes of product handling, they can be subject to bangs, vibrations and crushi
Developing a bioinsecticide that is more effective than pesticides for controlling pests in greenhouses is the aim of the project undertaken by a research team from the Public University of Navarre and commissioned by the Almería Fruit & Vegetable Exporters Association (COEXPHAL).
Biological efficiaciousness
The COEXPHAL Association of the province of Almería manages a surface area of about 18,000 hectares, primarily given over to greenhouse vegetables. Many of these crops (
CSIRO is breeding new ’high-vigour’ wheats so fast-growing they can out-compete weeds while maintaining high yields.
Weeds cost Australian farmers over $4 billion annually in chemical and mechanical control and yield losses.
“High-vigour wheats have the potential to provide significant economic savings and environmental benefits for Australian agriculture,” says Dr Greg Rebetzke, CSIRO Plant Industry.
“In field trials where wheat crops have to compete with weeds, the hig
Soybean crops planted weeks ago appear in no hurry to grow. Others aren’t turning a rich green in color. And while growers might be starting to worry, there’s no need to fret, said Ellsworth Christmas, Purdue University Extension soybean specialist.
“There are two basic questions producers have at this time,” Christmas said. “No. 1, why are soybeans that have emerged growing so slowly? And, secondly, why are the plants yellow or very light green in color? Both of those concerns are
Potatoes may be on the no-no list for high-protein diets, but a University of Florida researcher says a new low-carb potato will help win back die-hard carbohydrate counters.
“Consumers are going to love the flavor and appearance of this potato and the fact that it has 30 percent fewer carbohydrates compared to a standard Russet baking potato,” said Chad Hutchinson, an assistant professor of horticulture with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
“The potato doesn’t l
Looking closely at unhealthy, discolored plants in Texas Panhandle wheat fields is part of Dr. Charles Rush’s job. He is a plant pathologist with Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. But the scientist knows the damage isn’t drought-induced at all.
The damage is caused by two different viruses, the wheat streak mosaic and the High Plains, he said. Both are transmitted by the wheat curl mite (Aceria tosichella), common to the central plains of the United States.
“In the p
With support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Protection Service, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are using sophisticated computer modeling to track the spread of the fungal disease known as Asian soybean rust.
In recent years, the aggressive form of the disease has moved from Asia to Africa and into parts of South America. It first showed up in Paraguay in 2001 and now is a problem for many of the major soybean-growing are
Researchers from Nottingham University in the United Kingdom have developed a new method for reducing the level of contamination of chickens by the foodborne bacterium Campylobacter jejuni. They are using bacterial viruses to target and kill the organism. They report their research today at the 104th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
In the study, the researchers isolated a number of naturally occurring bacterial viruses (called bacteriophage) that can infect and kil
CSIRO Livestock Industries scientists in Rockhampton have observed larger-than-expected numbers of a parasitic nematode in the gut of insects responsible for transmitting them – buffalo flies.
The ’filarial’ nematode (Stephanofilaria sp)- one of a group of worms transmitted by insects, and which live in the blood and tissues of their animal or human hosts – has been found in around 50 per cent of female buffalo flies in northern Australia.
The discovery could have implications fo
Researchers at the University of Warwick have found a way of using some the most difficult waste material from coal mines and quarries that will also significantly reduce the rapid depletion of the world’s best peat resources.
The researchers in the University of Warwick’s horticultural research arm, Warwick HRI, have been able to develop new substitute products from quarry and coal mine waste which can replace some of the 250,000m³ of peat are used each year for growing mushroom
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