News & Events
Researchers at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) have revealed in a study published in Cell Reports that the circadian clock plays a guiding role in plant cell differentiation. The function of circadian clocks in the process of differentiation has been shown in many multicellular organisms, however, how plant circadian clocks regulate cell differentiation has remained unclear.
The global capacity to produce plants using genetic engineering is critically short of demand. This is according to Joyce Van Eck, Associate Professor at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI), who was recently awarded with a US$500,000 grant from the US National Science Foundation to start the Plant Genetic Engineering Network Research Coordination Network (PlantGENE). As the world continues to face the challenges of rapidly increasing population and climate change, it is imperative to improve crops to feed the planet sustainably.
Water-use efficiency (WUE) is the ratio of biomass produced per unit of water consumed; thus, it can be altered by genetic factors that affect either side of the ratio. In the present study, we exploited natural variation for WUE to discover loci affecting either biomass accumulation or water use as factors affecting WUE. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using integrated WUE measured through carbon isotope discrimination (δ13C) of Arabidopsis thaliana accessions identified genomic regions associated with WUE.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported that the benchmark for world food commodity prices declined significantly in July. The prices of major cereal and vegetable oil had double-digit percentage declines.The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 140.9 points in July, which is 8.6 percent lower than the previous month's average.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO Panel) has published their assessment on the safety of five-event stack genetically modified (GM) herbicide tolerant and insect resistant maize MON 89034 × 1507 × MIR162 × NK603 × DAS-40278-9. The Scientific Opinion is published based on the application EFSA-GMO-NL-2018-151 under Regulation (EC) No. 1829/2003 received from Dow AgroSciences LLC.
The circadian clock is a timekeeping, homeostatic system that temporally coordinates all major cellular processes. The function of the circadian clock is compensated in the face of variable environmental conditions ranging from normal to stress-inducing conditions. Salinity is a critical environmental factor affecting plant growth, and plants have evolved the SALT OVERLY SENSITIVE (SOS) pathway to acquire halotolerance.
Researchers from the University of Stanford designed a series of synthetic genetic circuits that gave them control over the decisions made by different kinds of plant cells and used these to grow plants with modified root structures to help in nutrient and water absorption. Aside from the root system, the synthetic genes can also potentially modify leaf structures that can adapt to changing environmental conditions.
ISAAA Inc., in partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service Hanoi (USDA FAS Hanoi) and Vietnam's Agricultural Genetics Institute (AGI), held the webinar Crop Biotechnology for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation on August 11, 2022 via Zoom. The target audience were government officials working on climate change programs at Vietnam's Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
In the evolutionary history of plants, variation in cis-regulatory elements (CREs) resulting in diversification of gene expression has played a central role in driving the evolution of lineage-specific traits. However, it is difficult to predict expression behaviors from CRE patterns to properly harness them, mainly because the biological processes are complex. In this study, we used cistrome datasets and explainable convolutional neural network (CNN)
Trade plays a vital role in our everyday lives. It connects food systems and people and provides consumers with sufficient, diverse and nutritious food. It also generates income and employment for farmers, workers and traders around the world. During the pandemic, international trade continued to link food deficit areas to surplus regions, contributing to food security and nutrition. But the war in Ukraine is threatening multilateral cooperation and risks fragmenting the global food market.
In Tigray, northern Ethiopia, FAO is scaling up the urgent procurement of fertilizers to help farmers sow their fields in the midst of the critical planting season thanks to a $10 million loan recently approved by the United Nations’ Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The loan, which forms part of resource partners’ commitments, is helping FAO to accelerate the procurement and delivery of crucial agricultural inputs to Tigray, particularly fertilizers, which must be delivered and applied by end of August 2022.
Wheat breeders select heading date to match the most favorable conditions for their target environments and this is favored by the extensive genetic variation for this trait that has the potential to be further explored. In this study, we used a germplasm with broad geographic distribution and tested it in multi-location field trials across Germany over three years. The genotypic response to the variation in the climatic parameters depending on location and year uncovered the effect of photoperiod and spring temperatures in accelerating heading date in higher and lower latitudes,