The beloved Australian lyrebird best known for its stunning tail and powers of mimicry may have a cunning hidden talent. 

Soilless growing systems inside greenhouses, known as controlled environment agriculture, promise to advance the year-round production of high-quality specialty crops, according to an interdisciplinary research team at Penn State. But to be competitive and sustainable, this advanced farming method will require the development and implementation of precision agriculture techniques. To meet that demand, the team developed an automated crop-monitoring system capable of providing continuous and frequent data about plant growth and needs, allowing for informed crop management.

A new study in Nature Food offers a more precise picture of exactly where and how warming will affect our ability to grow food.

This study found that bean inoculation with Rhizobium alone or in combination with P application, can increase grain yield of the two common bean cultivars. This indicates that recommending these agronomic inputs for use by resource-poor farmers in Ethiopia will be very helpful to increase the local common bean yield. Compared with the Ibbado, Hawassa Dume has a higher yield. Therefore, Hawassa Dume could be recommended for adoption by farmers in combination with the Rhizobium inoculant strain HB-429 and P at 20 kg·ha⁻¹ P in Ethiopia.

The amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed to maximize the profitability of corn production in the Midwest has been increasing by about 1.2% per year for the past three decades, a trend driven by higher yields and wetter springs, according to new Iowa State University study.