Virtual reality is entering the agricultural science classroom, and University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture researchers are helping teachers incorporate and create their own virtual reality resources.

With a $500,000 grant from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a faculty team in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications is building on their findings from a previously funded USDA grant project aimed to further develop efforts to train secondary school teachers and bring virtual reality (VR) to the classroom through the Agriscience Metaverse Academy.

As climate change increases the frequency of drought, excessive rainfall, and other extreme weather events, farmers face growing uncertainty about crop production. Understanding how farmers perceive and respond to that uncertainty can help improve agricultural policy and climate adaptation strategies. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Michigan State University examines farmer risk preferences when dealing with climate impacts.

DEET has been one of the most effective insect repellents for the past 80 years, but there could be a chink in the quintessential repellent’s armour. Claudio Lazzari from University of Tours, France, and colleagues reveal in Journal of Experimental Biology that yellow fever mosquitoes can learn to associate the smell of DEET with food, meaning that they could be more likely to bite people that smell of DEET, placing the indispensable repellent at risk.

A recently published collection of writings on perennial agriculture, “Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods“ (Princeton University Press), makes a cultural argument as much as an agricultural one: that perennial foods — crops that return year after year, building deep root systems and healthier soil — represent not just a different way of farming but a different way of belonging to the earth. The collection includes a contribution from Megan Kaminski, poet and professor of environmental studies at the University of Kansas.

Engineers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed a system that creates “digital twins” of real farms, allowing users to walk through fully interactive virtual spaces and observe actual plants in real time – technology that could make farming more accessible for older adults and people with disabilities. 

A research team led by Professor Gao Zexia from Huazhong Agricultural University in China has successfully cultivated grass carp completely lacking intermuscular bones (IBs)—small, sharp skeletal structures that not only pose consumption risks to consumers but also limit processing efficiency. By runx2b gene editing, the team obtained genetically stable F₂ populations of grass carp without IBs. Comprehensive phenotypic analysis revealed no significant differences between IBs-free and the wild-type grass carp in overall skeletal development, bone mineral density, muscle composition or nutritional content. Multi-omics data further demonstrated adaptive remodeling in Calcium Signaling and Muscle Contraction Pathways, indicating normal physiological compensation. This study provides a feasible strategy for improving the fish efficiency of aquaculture breeding and enhancing the supply of high quality fish protein.

The Universitat Jaume I of Castelló and GEA Biotechnology have developed an antifungal aqueous suspension for the prevention of fungal infections in crops and fruit during the pre- and post-harvest stages. The new formulation is aimed at the biotechnology and agricultural sectors, and the partners are seeking collaboration for further development and adaptation to commercial applications.

The technology is based on biodegradable chitosan microcapsules encapsulating anethole, a natural compound with antifungal activity, which improves its stability and enables controlled release on crop and fruit surfaces. According to the research team, led by Carolina Clausell from the Ecophysiology and Biotechnology research group coordinated by Aurelio Gómez Cadenas, the formulation “enhances the antifungal efficacy of natural compounds and offers a more sustainable alternative to conventional synthetic fungicides”.