An increase in the spread of rust diseases could have devastating results on the fast-growing ornamental crop industry, say pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS).

The U.S. ornamental plant industry, which includes deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs, cut flowers, and foliage and flowering potted plants, grew in value to $14.3 billion in 2002. Geranium, chrysanthemum, gladiolus, and daylily are just a few of the many crops produced in the U.S.

According t

Increased levels of water temperature can have critical effects on predator-prey interactions in the marine environment. Increased water temperature, for example, could be beneficial to a predator if the primary effect were to accelerate its level of metabolism, and thus enhance foraging activity. On the other hand, warm temperatures could also enhance the metabolism of the prey, increasing its activity, mobility, and ability to escape from predators.

In a recent issue of the Marine Ecology

Most agronomists look to their laboratories, greenhouses or research farms for innovative new cropping techniques. But Jane Mt. Pleasant, professor of horticulture and director of the American Indian Program at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., has taken a different path, mining her Iroquois heritage for planting and cultivation methods that work for today’s farmers.

Mt. Pleasant studies what traditionally are known as the “three sisters”: beans, corn and squash. These staples of Iroqu

In a few decades, it’s likely that scientists will look back at the early part of the 21st century and regard it as a fundamental stage in understanding the importance of the effects of aerosols on Earth’s climate. In fact, it was in this time period, they may say, that aerosols were first found to be as climatologically significant as greenhouse gases.

Aerosols, tiny atmospheric particles made up of various elements and produced by a range of sources, have become a prominent conc

A futuristic Duke University simulation of forest growth under the carbon dioxide-enriched atmosphere expected by 2050 does not reinforce the optimism of those who believe trees can absorb that extra CO2 by growing faster, said a spokesman for the experiment.

During seven years of exposure to carbon dioxide concentrations 1½ times higher than today’s, test plots of loblolly pines have indeed boosted their annual growth rates by between 10 and 25 percent, found the researchers. But “the

A growing body of evidence questions calculations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the land will automatically provide a significant, long-term carbon “sink” to offset some of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists reported these findings today at the 2004 AAAS (Triple-A-S) Annual Meeting.

The latest information about carbon dioxide fertilization – by which plants soak up carbon from the atmosphere – “really paints a different picture of the way the world w

Recent EU research discovered that tomato waste is full of untapped, nutritious goodness, and suggested how to make the most of it. Instead of using the excess tomatoes for animal feed or simply discarding them, the EU TOM(ato) project suggests using the tomato waste as a natural food additive. Every year, around 4 million tonnes of tomato by-products are disposed of in Europe alone. These dregs, especially the seeds, are an excellent source of nutrient-rich substances such as carotenoids, proteins

Fossilized bones found in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, are likely those of the earliest known South American penguin, which probably lived 20 million years earlier than scientists had supposed. The new find doubles the known fossil record of penguins in South America.

That’s the conclusion of Dr. Julia A. Clarke, assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, and her colleagues from Argentina, who published their findings in the December 200

ESA’s new Weather Today website allows you to access data from space relied upon by weather forecasters across Europe.

Perched in geostationary orbit 36,000 km above Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, the seventh ESA-developed Meteosat satellite maintains a constant weather eye on the European continent and its neighbours. Day and night every 30 minutes it routinely acquires a new image combining visual, infrared and water vapour channels.

Meteosat operator Eumetsat – the intergove

British scientists set sail today from Glasgow to begin work aimed at discovering if Britain is indeed in danger of entering the next ice age.

Scientists on the Royal Research Ship Discovery are on their way to deploy oceanographic instruments across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas. The instruments will spend the next four years measuring the temperature, salinity and speed of currents.

The work is part of a research programme called Rapid Climate Change, f

High tech tools may help find solutions to animal-human conflicts in the sea — Sea turtles, porpoises, albatrosses and tunas could see brighter days ahead

How can scientists follow leatherback sea turtles that dive to crushing depths a half-mile below the surface and swim across 80% of the world’s ocean? Or tunas that race faster than most boats? Or albatrosses that soar halfway across the Pacific without sleep or a meal — unlike their human observers? Science is beginning to m

As the tropical oceans continue to heat up, following a 20-year trend, warm rains in the tropics are likely to become more frequent, according to NASA scientists.

In a study by William Lau and Huey-Tzu Jenny Wu, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., the authors offer early proof of a long-held theory that patterns of evaporation and precipitation, known as the water cycle, may accelerate in some areas due to warming temperatures. The research appears in the current iss

A study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, has linked population declines of California’s desert bighorn sheep with the effects of climate change. What’s more, many of the state’s remaining bighorn populations could face extinction if certain global warming forecasts for the next 60 years come true.

In the study, which is published in the current issue of Conservation Biology, the authors found that of the 80 groups of desert bighorn sheep known to

The growing of cereal crops without recourse to fertiliser application or weeding, but alternatively rotating with vetch and fallow, together with returning the straw to the soil after the harvest, increases the production yield two-fold with respect to the conventional mode of growing crops, with its use of chemical additives and herbicides. Moreover, the profitability of this ecological system can be multiplied by four when an ecological market exists. This is what Gabriel Pardo Sanclemente from th

A CSIRO irrigation research laboratory at Griffith in NSW will provide ground-breaking knowledge, skills and technology to the world’s biggest and most intensive irrigation regions under a new United Nations program.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has appointed CSIRO Land and Water’s Sustainable Irrigation Systems group in Griffith as the HELP (Hydrology, Environment, Life and Policy) Regional Coordinating Unit for the Australasian reg

While cities provide vital habitat for human beings to thrive, it appears U.S. cities have been built on the most fertile soils, lessening contributions of these lands to Earth’s food web and human agriculture, according to a study by NASA researchers and others.

Though cities account for just 3 percent of continental U.S. land area, the food and fiber that could be grown there rivals current production on all U.S. agricultural lands, which cover 29 percent of the country. Marc Imhoff,