Study shows plants adapted to farming and irrigation with root changes that helped corn adjust to low nitrogen and deeper water, making them key to the success of its domestication.

A new global analysis reveals a critical oversight in sustainable coffee and carbon-capture initiatives. These programs incentivize the planting of new trees yet fail to reward the preservation of mature shade trees in existing agroforestry farms, despite their far greater carbon storage potential. To maximize the potential of coffee farming to fight climate change and boost biodiversity, the study authors call for creating carbon payment programs that reward protecting existing shade trees and ensuring these payments are accessible to small farms. For tree-planting efforts, researchers recommend explicitly prioritizing tree diversity in all planting initiatives to support biodiversity. Without these changes, global coffee agriculture may continue to lose carbon and biodiversity despite investments in tree planting.

Salk Institute researchers have established the first genetic atlas to span the entire Arabidopsis thaliana life cycle, capturing the gene expression patterns of 400,000 cells. The resource—available online for free—will help expand research and development in plant biotechnology, agriculture, and environmental sciences.

Researchers have identified key factors that influence the flavour of chocolate during the cocoa bean fermentation process, a discovery that could offer chocolate producers a powerful tool to craft consistently high-quality, flavour-rich chocolate.

Farmers in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, pay four to six times more for crop insurance than their counterparts in the upper Midwest, and Hunter Biram wanted to know why. The result of his research with colleagues in Kansas was published in late July in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.