Researchers at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture and the USDA Agricultural Research Service have received a more than $324,000 grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop efficient monitoring systems for insect infestations in grain storage and large-scale food processing facilities.

Genome editing with CRISPR-Cas is often associated with the induction of mutations. However, a team of researchers from the Swiss University of Lausanne now shows that it can also be used to repair natural mutations.

A study of Chinese agriculture recommends planting areas currently growing maize and rapeseed with alternative crops to reduce environmental costs while maximizing food production as the climate changes. 

So-called "phantom agents" are suspected pathogens that have been reported in scientific literature going back to the early 1900s with no real evidence they exist. Most of these phantom agents were described before modern molecular techniques, and there are no samples or genome sequences available to study them. Despite the lack of evidence of their existence, the suspected pathogens made their way into international regulations that control the shipment of plant materials. The result is a confusing mix of real and phantom agents on regulatory lists that must be ruled out by the sender before plants can be shipped from country to country. In a Plant Disease article recently published by the American Phytopathological Society, Ioannis Tzanetakis at the Arkansas Clean Plant Center and co-authors from more than 40 countries identify phantom agents in eight crops that still appear on regulated pathogen lists even though there is no way to accurately test for them.