News & Events
With the intention to build the capacity of partners in the public and private sectors on hybrid rice seed production, the Hybrid Rice Development Consortium (HRDC), in collaboration with the Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University (PJTSAU) and the ICAR-Indian Institute of Rice Research (ICAR-IIRR), conducted the International Hybrid Rice Seed Production Training Course (HRSP) at the College of Agriculture, PJTSAU, Hyderabad, India last 22-24 October 2019.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Myanmar’s Agricultural Mechanization Department (AMD) conducted a hands-on training on Rice Straw Based Mushroom Cultivation at the Agricultural Machinery Training Center, in Yezin, Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. This training is part of a two-week workshop and training on Rice Straw Management, which ran from 4 – 14 November 2019.
The objective of this paper was to fit different established spatial models for analysing agricultural field trials using the open-source R package INLA. Spatial variation is common in field trials, and accounting for it increases the accuracy of estimated genetic effects. However, this is still hindered by the lack of available software implementations. We compare some established spatial models and show possibilities for flexible modelling with respect to field trial design and joint modelling over multiple years and locations
Through South-South Cooperation, countries across the global South are successfully exchanging technical expertise and building innovative partnerships, which if strengthened, can continue to play a crucial role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. This was the message at the opening today of a three-day event in Kampala, Uganda, marking the 10th Anniversary of the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Programme and Triangular Cooperation.
FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu met today with Sergio Mattarella, President of the Republic of Italy for talks at the head of state’s residence. The parties held a fruitful meeting during which President Mattarella accepted the Director-General’s invitation to mark the 75th anniversary of FAO and celebrate World Food Day next 16 October 2020 at the UN agency’s headquarters in Rome.
Infection of animal cells by numerous viruses is detected and countered by a variety of means, including recognition of nonself nucleic acids. The zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) depletes cytoplasmic RNA that is recognized as foreign in mammalian cells by virtue of its elevated CG dinucleotide content compared with endogenous mRNAs. Here, we determined a crystal structure of a protein-RNA complex containing the N-terminal
Grazing is a major land use activity in grasslands of arid and semiarid regions. As a result, addressing how large herbivore grazing affects biodiversity and ecosystem functions in these ecosystems has been diligently studied by ecologists for many decades (1). In PNAS, Wang et al. (2) suggest that diversifying livestock (i.e., grazing sheep and cattle rather than a single type of livestock) could promote biodiversity and ecosystem function in grasslands
The drug Zolgensma was recently in the news for all the wrong reasons. In August, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave drug manufacturer AveXis, Inc, a subsidiary of Novartis AG, a major slap on the wrist for violations related to the approval of Zolgensma, a new treatment for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). The agency said the company had failed to promptly report to the proper regulatory authorities issues of data manipulation in some product testing. Ominous newspaper headlines followed.
Conserving biodiversity is critical for safeguarding future crop production. Onion (Allium cepa L.) is a globally important crop with a very large (16 Gb per 1C) genome which has not been sequenced. While onions are self-fertile, they suffer from severe inbreeding depression and as such are highly heterozygous as a result of out-crossing. Bulb formation is driven by daylength, and accessions are adapted to the local photoperiod. Onion seed is often directly sown in the field, and hence seedling establishment is a critical trait for production.
Scientists led by The University of Sheffield have solved the structure of one of the key components of photosynthesis, a discovery that could lead to photosynthesis being ‘redesigned' to achieve higher yields and meet urgent food security needs. The study reveals the structure of cytochrome b6f - the protein complex that significantly influences plant growth via photosynthesis.
Doubled haploid (DH) technology has become an integral part of many commercial maize breeding programs as DH lines offer several economic, logistic and genetic benefits over conventional inbred lines. Further, new advances in DH technology continue to improve the efficiency of DH line development and fuel its increased adoption in breeding programs worldwide. The established method for maize DH production covered in this review involves in vivo induction of maternal haploids by a male haploid inducer genotype