Research recently conducted on the Texas South Plains may help wine grape growers conserve irrigation water without reducing grape yield or quality.
“The concept is known as deficit irrigation. You give the vines less than 100 percent of their actual water needs prior to veraison, or ripening,” said Ed Hellman, Texas Cooperative Extension viticulture specialiast based in Lubbock. Hellman has a joint appointment with Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University.
“Deficit irrigati
Leading-edge technology is being used by two CSIRO Livestock Industries’ research teams to identify genes that enable sheep to resist intestinal parasites.
The discovery of such genes could lead to new products, control strategies, and markers to identify superior animals in selective breeding programs, which will substantially improve the overall health and welfare of the national flock.
With support from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) and Australian Wool Innovation (A
Scientists at the John Innes Centre (JIC), Norwich have today reported that a very successful antibiotic, which is harmless to humans but lethal to most bacteria, also kills plants. They have found that an enzyme, which is an important target for several families of antibiotics and was thought to exist only in bacteria, is also present in plants. The discovery sheds further light on plant evolution and highlights a potential area for development of new herbicides, while it has no significance with re
The trees of the future may stem from advances in gene discovery research at Purdue University that could lead to domesticated trees, the forestry equivalent of crop plants like corn and soybeans.
“I think this is the future of forestry,” said Richard Meilan, an associate professor of molecular physiology with Purdue’s Hardwood Tree Improvement and Regeneration Center who has demonstrated a way to rapidly identify genes in poplar trees and determine their function.
“Our goal i
Chemicals have limited effects on controlling it and there are no known resistant varieties of processing pumpkin to withstand an attack of the deadly blight known as Phytophthora capsici (P. capsici). Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suspect that rotating crops that are not susceptible to the disease may be a solution to the problem.
In a recent study, 45 species of crop and weed plants were screened for their susceptibility to P. capsici. Although 22 crop
Biotech corn carrying a gene that confers protection from insects can pollinate corn plants as far as 100 feet (31 meters) away, reports a pair of researchers.
The gene, known as Bt, codes for a toxin that kills corn-munching caterpillars, including European corn borer and corn earworm.
The findings suggest measures are needed to reduce pollen spread from Bt corn to corn fields that should be Bt-free, according to the researchers.
The discovery is important because plan
Lablab, a drought-tolerant, summer annual legume native to the tropics, could be a valuable addition to the Texas forage repertoire, according to a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station scientist.
“An accelerated lablab breeding and evaluation program will start for this summer to provide improved cultivars for both livestock and wildlife management systems in Texas,” said Dr. Ray Smith, Experiment Station legume breeder based at the Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research and Ext
During research carried out in the Netherlands, Marilia Santos Silva discovered that some tobacco plants die if a virus infects them, whereas others survive.
A virus can quickly and completely infect a plant by spreading through the plant’s vascular system. This is analogous to human viruses spreading through the circulatory system in the human body. Santos Silva discovered that the cowpea mosaic virus could not penetrate the vascular system of some tobacco plants. In the future
A Purdue University research team has found a set of genes that may orchestrate insects’ ability to fight the effects of pesticides.
“Our study suggests that more than one gene may be involved in making insects resistant to certain pesticides,” said Barry Pittendrigh, associate professor of entomology. “Using a music analogy, metabolic resistance may not be a single individual playing a single instrument. It’s more likely a symphony with numerous instruments playing a role i
Research to improve the resistance of Australia’s northern beef herds to cattle ticks received a boost recently with the discovery that tropically-adapted cattle breeds have a different immune response to tick infestation than more susceptible European breeds.
CSIRO Livestock Industries scientist, Dr Ian Sutherland, says that while research has traditionally focused on the genetics of tick resistance, little was known about the underlying immune mechanisms involved.
Now, howeve
Erosion of genetic diversity of crop plants has for several decades been making it necessary to develop initiatives for protecting these plant resources. One strategy is in-situ conservation of crop plants. The model currently advanced involves maintaining the varieties to be conserved isolated in reserves, protected from entry of other varieties from elsewhere and cultivated according to ancestral farming practices. Researchers from the IRD and the CIMMYT of Mexico (1) used work previously conducted
Irrigation by surge flooding, a technique used essentially in rice cropping, involves the input of large volumes of water. In some regions, this water does not infiltrate to any depth. Poor infiltration like this can cause severe loss in soil quality and harm crops. Recent investigations on such a situation in a rice field in the River Senegal valley, involving water budget monitoring for 100 days, the length of a cropping season, have confirmed a lack of water infiltration below 40 cm depth. Scienti
The use of laser technology to provide new insights into animal behaviour could lead to improved livestock management practices, according to the leader of a Rockhampton-based CSIRO Livestock Industries research group, Dr Dave Swain.
In a recent trial, Livestock and Environment Group researchers used a survey laser to monitor and record the movement of cows and calves around a paddock.
“The laser allowed us to track the animals without physically handling them, so we didn’t di
The fish farming industry can be one of the most important sources of value creation in Norway’s future. “The long-term view that steers knowledge development can give Norwegian fish farming the same important role that oil has had,” says Harald Sveier, Senior Reseacher in EWOS Innovation.
Senior Researcher Harald Sveier of EWS Innovation has recently, together with 30-some other industry actors, worked out a scenario for Norwegian fish farming. The work takes place in the fish farming progr
Plant pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS) are reporting a significant increase in the occurrence of Phytophthora blight of vine crops, including cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash, in many vegetable-growing regions of the United States. This devastating disease, caused by a soilborne pathogen called Phytophthora capsici, often results in nearly total yield loss.
According to Mohammad Babadoost, a plant pathology professor at the University of Illinois, Phytophthora
Scientists at the John Innes Centre (JIC)and Institute of Food Research (IFR), Norwich, have today reported the discovery and use of a gene that may help protect plants and humans against disease. The gene (HQT) was identified in tomato and is responsible for producing an antioxidant called chlorogenic acid (CGA).
By increasing the activity of HQT, the scientists raised the levels of CGA in the tomato fruits and this helped protect them against attack from bacterial disease. CGA could also
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