Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and… groundcherries? A little-known fruit about the size of a marble could become agriculture’s next big berry crop. 

The study evaluated end-of-season accuracy of individual and combined data sources as compared with the national maize yield forecast in the monthly USDA WASDE reports.

Where do pesticides and their degradation products go once they enter the soil? And how long does it take them to get to groundwater or drainage systems? That depends on a number of factors, but researchers at Aarhus University have come a step closer to finding quick answers. For the first time ever, they have used visible/near-infrared spectroscopy to predict the transport of dissolved chemicals through intact soil. 

The future of plant genetic resources and their stewards is bright and filled with new technologies.

With bee populations in decline, a new study offers hope for a relatively simple mechanism to promote bee health and well-being: providing bees access to sunflowers.

New findings show that a micro RNA from the shoot keeps legume roots susceptible to symbiotic infection by downregulating a gene that would otherwise hinder root responses to symbiotic bacteria. These findings help us understand what it takes to make nitrogen-fixing symbiosis efficient, and what we need to do to exploit it agronomically.

"Health trumps politics,” said Iowa State Senator David Johnson before taking the stage at a raucous rally in Des Moines last winter to support strengthening the state’s water quality. In the marble rotunda of the state capitol, he rose to denounce the nitrogen and phosphates that have been flowing in ever-increasing quantities into Iowa’s public water supplies — and was cheered by the small crowd of family farmers, concerned mothers, and his new political allies, the legislature’s drastically outnumbered Democrats. Johnson had been one of the longest-serving Republicans in Iowa until he left the party to become an independent in 2016 after defying it  repeatedly on one of the most divisive issues in Iowa — the integrity of the state’s water.

Scientists have determined for the first time that Amazon’s waterlogged coastal mangrove forests, which are being clear cut for cattle pastures and shrimp ponds, store significantly more carbon per acre than the region’s famous rainforest.

Current climate change models might be overestimating how much carbon dioxide plants can suck from the atmosphere.

Researchers have perked up at the opportunity to brew some coffee-growing solutions.