Cornell researchers have weighed in on a high-stakes debate between crop experts and scientists: Which of climate change’s challenges – higher temperature or stress from drought – poses the greater threat to U.S. rain-fed agriculture?

Hyperspectral data comprises the full light spectrum; this dataset of continuous spectral information has many applications from understanding the health of the Great Barrier Reef to picking out more productive crop cultivars. 

When farmland is converted from grain production to grasslands, the greatest environmental benefits are obtained by choosing land that is close to existing natural areas or has high nutritional loads to aquatic environments, a new study indicates.

The world’s top 10 crops —  barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane and wheat — supply a combined 83 percent of all calories produced on cropland. 

The intensification of cattle ranching in a particular area to boost its productivity was proposed by experts as a measure to reduce deforestation of new lands in the Amazon, but a new study shows that sometimes it can have the opposite effect.

A study conducted by scientists from Brazil, the United States and Portugal investigated the accuracy and consistency of different satellite data collections with regard to the location and size of burned areas in the Cerrado biome, the Brazilian savanna.

The clearing and subsequent instability of Amazonian forests are among the greatest threats to tropical biodiversity conservation today.

Researchers may be able to improve corn yields and nutritional value after discovering genetic regulators that synthesize starch and protein in the widely eaten grain, according to a Rutgers-led study.

Research carried out into the impact of changes to chimpanzee habitats found they have adapted to human developments in a number of ways – including learning how to cross roads safely - but their survival is still threatened.

Today, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released the latest edition of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) for the U.S. – the most comprehensive land cover database that the USGS has ever produced.