The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today an investment of $25 million to launch the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS). The center, a partnership among the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University, the Boyce Thompson Institute, and the University of Arizona, aims to develop tools to listen and talk to plants and their associated organisms.

The shea tree is best know as a source for a multimillion-dollar ingredient used in cosmetics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals and chocolate. But for hundreds of thousands of African families living in the “shea belt” it is also a crucial source of nutrition and income. Despite its increasing demand, the slow-growing shea tree is being threatened by other cash crops and its preservation most likely lies in its genetic improvement. To enable such work, an international team of researchers led by the University of New Hampshire has sequenced the shea tree’s genome, providing a valuable resource for the strategic development of the species.

One in three trees worldwide are facing extinction, with human use among the greatest threats, according to the first State of the World’s Trees report published September 1 by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI).

While gene editing technology has improved crop breeding and adaptation, the process of regrowing a plant from edited cells is costly, lengthy, and unpredictable. Many popular crops are difficult to regenerate with existing methods. The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) is providing a $664,000 grant through its Crops of the Future Collaborative to the University of Maryland (UMD) to develop a technology that can both edit a crop’s genes and speed up crop regeneration. Matching funds provide a total $739,000 investment in this work.

Researchers from the University of Plymouth have been monitoring the impact of the Lyme Bay Marine Protected Area (MPA) since it was designated in 2008, and found there are 370% more fish within the MPA than in similar areas outside it where bottom-towed fishing are still permitted