News & Events

Could legumes be the key to food production sustainability and climate change resilience? They consume less than half the non-renewable energy of traditional cereals, they can survive harsh conditions like drought and they improve soil health by fixing nitrogen. On this, World Pulses Day, February 10, Dr Christopher Ochieng Ojiewo, principal scientist at ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) in Nairobi, Kenya, asks the question “What lessons can we learn from legume farmers in Africa?”

An international research team led by the University of Göttingen studied the molecular mechanisms of plant immune system and was able to show the connection between a relatively unknown gene and resistance to pathogens.The research team from Plant Responses To Eliminate Critical Threat (PRoTECT), an International Research Training Group (IRTG) founded in 2016 with the University of Göttingen and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver aimed to identify and describe a gene from a disease-resistant plant.

Diallel experiments are based on a set of possible crosses between some homozygous (inbred) lines. For these experiments, six main diallel models are available in literature, to quantify genetic effects, such as general combining ability (GCA), specific combining ability (SCA), reciprocal (maternal) effects and heterosis. Those models tend to be presented as separate entities, to be fitted by using specialised software

An international team of researchers has identified a new gene that provides potatoes resistance to all races of Phytophthora infestans, the organism responsible for the serious potato disease late blight which caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. Researchers from The Sainsbury Lab in the United Kingdom, Wageningen University & Research (WUR), and their co-workers from other institutions explored the diversity of resistance genes in a wide range of wild Solanum plants related to potato

 In another step towards creating a "digital FAO", the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is committing to increasing by 50 percent its delivery of digital financial transfers and vouchers to beneficiaries. As part of joining the Better Than Cash Alliance, FAO is also pledging to expand its use of digital payments in at least ten more of its Decentralized Offices. Director-General QU Dongyu set these ambitious targets, while officially joining the Better Than Cash Alliance.

Meiotic recombination is a fundamental process that generates genetic diversity and ensures the accurate segregation of homologous chromosomes. While a great deal is known about genetic factors that regulate recombination, relatively little is known about epigenetic factors, such as DNA methylation. In maize, we examined the effects on meiotic recombination of a mutation in a component of the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway

Japan is stepping up funding for FAO in three key areas, Vice-Minister for International Affairs at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) Makoto Osawa told Director-General QU Dongyu, as the two officials met virtually today. Osawa went on to list the strengthening of agricultural supply chains in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic; the promotion of traditional healthy diets; and statistical capacity.

Over 2.6 million people in Somalia are expected to be in extreme food insecurity according to the latest joint technical assessment released by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). The report cites poor rainfall, flooding and desert locusts among the main contributing factors and warns that the situation could worsen through mid-2021 in the absence of large-scale and sustained humanitarian assistance.

Salinity stress seriously affects plant growth and limits agricultural productivity of crop plants. To dissect the genetic basis of response to salinity stress, a recombinant inbred line population was developed to compare fiber quality in upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) under salt stress and normal conditions. Based on three datasets of (1) salt stress, (2) normal growth, and (3) the difference value between salt stress and normal conditions, 51, 70, and 53 QTL were mapped, respectively. Three QTL for fiber length (FL) (qFL-Chr1-1, qFL-Chr5-5, and qFL-Chr24-4) were detected under both salt and normal conditions and explained 4.26%, 9.38%, and 3.87% of average phenotypic variation, respectively.

World-leading plant scientists collaborate to identify new disease resistance genes to fight Asian soybean rust, devastating airborne disease of soybean that can cause yield losses of up to 80 percent. Experts at The 2Blades Foundation will search for cell-surface receptors to soybean with the objective of developing soybean plants with improved resistance to Asian soybean rust.

In a survey conducted to assess public knowledge and perceptions about gene-edited crops in Australia, 40 percent associate the technology with genetically modified (GM) crops.The survey, conducted by a polling firm hired by CropLife Canada, also showed that 35-40% of Canadians believe that GM foods are not safe to eat, even if scientific evidence shows that they are as safe as their conventional counterparts.

O-GlcNAc modification plays important roles in metabolic regulation of cellular status. Two homologs of O-GlcNAc transferase, SECRET AGENT (SEC) and SPINDLY (SPY), which have O-GlcNAc and O-fucosyl transferase activities, respectively, are essential in Arabidopsis but have largely unknown cellular targets. Here we show that AtACINUS is O-GlcNAcylated and O-fucosylated and mediates regulation of transcription, alternative splicing (AS), and developmental transitions. Knocking-out both AtACINUS and its distant paralog AtPININ causes severe growth defects including dwarfism, delayed seed germination and flowering, and abscisic acid (ABA) hypersensitivity.