As the cut flower industry hits one of its busiest periods, new RMIT research has shown that the water-absorbing green floral foam used by florists is contributing to the world’s microplastic problem.

Researchers performed a laboratory study on pine bark-based potting medium and two ingredients nurseries often add to it: dolomite and micronutrient fertilizer.

A team of Texas A&M researchers found that spectroscopy may have a new use in food production from the field to the grocery store.

A study by Oregon State University researchers has identified forests in the western United States that should be preserved for their potential to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration, as well as to enhance biodiversity.

In a rapidly urbanising world, the conversion of natural habitats into urban areas leads to a significant loss of biodiversity in cities. 

Scientists have identified systematic meanders in the globe-circling northern jet stream that have caused simultaneous crop-damaging heat waves in widely separated breadbasket regions–a previously unquantified threat to global food production that, they say, could worsen with global warming. 

By monitoring crops through machine learning and satellite data, Stanford scientists have found farms that till the soil less can increase yields of corn and soybeans and improve the health of the soil – a win-win for meeting growing food needs worldwide.

In the wake of a potent winter storm in late November in the U.S. Midwest, an unusual pattern turned up in satellite imagery.

Plants that can “bounce back” after disturbances like ploughing, flooding or drought are the most likely to be “invasive” if they’re moved to new parts of the world, scientists say.

In remote areas with low literacy rates, showing animated videos in the local language demonstrating agricultural techniques results in high retention and adoption rates of those techniques, found researchers from Michigan State University.