Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) confers broad-spectrum resistance in plants, offering a simple, environmental-friendly, and promising strategy for safeguarding crops against diverse phytopathogens. These findings also provide valuable insights for future in-depth studies into the functional mechanisms of NMN.

A newly identified disease affecting corn and sorghum can closely resemble iron deficiency, potentially leading farmers to apply costly nutrient treatments that do not address the underlying problem. New research published in Plant Health Progress documents the discovery and identification of a bacterial pathogen responsible for the symptoms.

Two researchers at the University of Zurich have discovered and described a new, previously unknown palm species found in the virgin forests of Colombia. In close cooperation with an indigenous community there, they mapped the geographical distribution of the palm species and subjected their study to a local peer review process.

A new interdisciplinary study published in Nature reconstructs over 2,000 years of population history in Argentina’s Uspallata Valley (UV), a southern frontier of Andean farming spread in ancient times, with broader lessons on how agriculture shaped societies and how communities endured crises. By combining ancient human and pathogen genomics with isotopic analyses, archaeology and paleoclimate records–and working in close collaboration with Huarpe Indigenous communities–, the research reveals how local hunter-gatherers adopted agriculture, how more recent intensive maize farmers experienced prolonged stress, and how kinship-based mobility may have helped communities persist through instability.