A clearer picture of corn’s biochemical responses to insect and fungal attacks is emerging, thanks to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) studies in Gainesville, Fla. On one front, researchers identified defensive compounds, known as zealexins and kauralexins, which rapidly accumulate at fungal infection sites, impeding the microbes’ [Continue]
A custom-made machine for packaging mealworms infected with beneficial nematodes could improve the delivery, timing and use of the wormlike organisms as biological control agents. The machine is the result of a cooperative research and development agreement involving U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and Southeastern Insectaries, [Continue]
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are leading the way in learning more about “biochar,” the charred biomass created from wood, other plant material, and manure. The studies by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists at laboratories across the country support the USDA priorities of promoting international [Continue]
A free, user-friendly online database system for managing the world’s plant genebanks will be launched this year, thanks to a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The international project involves updating a germplasm management system called [Continue]
Genetic resistance to a parasitic nematode that infects sheep has been discovered by a team of scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The researchers are the first to detect quantitative trait loci (QTL), genetic locations on chromosomes, for resistance to [Continue]
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have characterized the molecular mechanism behind some plants’ ability to resist rice blast, a fungal disease that affects cereal grain crops such as rice, wheat, rye and barley and can cause yield losses of up to 30 percent. The fungus has been found in 85 countries worldwide, including the [Continue]
Research performed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and published recently in the journal Crop Science has demonstrated that mineral levels in new varieties of broccoli have not declined since 1975, and that the broccoli contains the same levels of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium and other minerals that have [Continue]
Israeli chemist Prof. Daniel Shechtman (70), of The Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, was declared the winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry today. The prize was awarded for Shechtman’s discovery of the existence of quasicrystals, which opened up a whole field of research, in which thousands of scientists currently [Continue]
When wireworms feast on potatoes, the results aren’t pretty: The spuds’ surfaces are left punctured, pitted and unappealing. For the past few years, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their colleagues have sought a solution in the form of spuds with genetic resistance to the worms, with special attention focused on [Continue]
Fungi found in the leaves and trunks of wild Peruvian cacao trees offer the potential for biological control of cacao diseases such as witches’ broom disease, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists. Several of the fungal species were previously unknown to science. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers at the [Continue]
