Scientists from Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Pakistan and the United Kingdom gathered in Rabat, Morocco for a meeting at the British Embassy on precision breeding technologies and their potential for nutritional security.

Goldenberries taste like a cross between pineapple and mango, pack the nutritional punch of a superfood, and are increasingly popular in U.S. grocery stores. But the plants that produce these bright yellow-orange fruits grow wild and unruly—reaching heights that make large-scale farming impractical. Researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) helped solve that problem.

Salt stress, a major challenge to agriculture, impacts apple growth and fruit quality globally. 

A new study published in Biochar reports that sulfur-modified wheat straw biochar can dramatically reduce the toxic effects of vanadium contamination in rice, offering a promising and sustainable strategy to protect global food production in polluted regions. Vanadium is a heavy metal increasingly found in agricultural soils due to mining, smelting, fertilizer overuse, and wastewater irrigation. Even moderate exposure can stunt plant growth, damage photosynthesis, and impair the antioxidant defenses that keep crops healthy.

Researchers are exploiting the unusual hearing of wax moths to develop a sustainable and efficient pest control technique that does not harm bees. These moths can hear sounds four octaves higher than a human can, and this ultrasonic hearing helps them avoid bats food and hear male moth calls. By analyzing which patterns of bat echolocation calls elicited a stronger neural response in the moths, the researchers determined the best ultrasonic deterrent.

Higher plant diversity in agricultural grasslands increases yields with lower inputs of nitrogen fertilizer. That is the headline finding of a landmark, international study led by Trinity College Dublin that paints a promising picture for more sustainable agriculture.

And in further good news, the research shows that under warmer temperatures, the yield benefits of more diverse grasslands further increase. This highlights the climate adaptation potential of multispecies mixtures in an era where the global climate crisis is driving rising temperatures in many countries.

In this study, the researchers considered whether adding more species (up to two grasses, two legumes, and two herbs) to these grasslands and creating ‘multispecies mixtures’ could maintain or improve yields while reducing the reliance of nitrogen fertilizers that have negative environmental impacts. 

The results showed that multispecies mixtures achieved high yields due to strong grass-legume and legume-herb synergistic interactions – the yield of the mixtures was much greater than the sum of the parts.

With a new, first-of-its-kind study, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers say investments in farm demonstration networks may be the key to faster, more widespread adoption of conservation practices. Their work links the implementation of a Wisconsin farm demonstration program with a 50% increase in cover crop adoption over baseline levels within just four years.