The Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), the U.K.’s research and development funding agency, announced that Western University professor Bogumil Karas has been named as a Research and Development Creator in phase one of its Synthetic Plants program. This specific program aims to launch a new generation of major crops that are more productive, resilient and sustainable. Karas, professor in the department of biochemistry, has been awarded £869,000 ($1.5M CAD) to design and develop functioning optimized plant chloroplasts that can transfer genomes into crops to provide enhanced traits.

New research from Colorado State University and Cornell University shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado’s grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and – particularly during dry years – increase plant growth by about 20% or more compared to open fields.

A research team has unveiled a groundbreaking study demonstrating the transformative potential of large language models (LLMs) in plant genomics.

Forest soil stores water, carbon and nutrients for trees and also provides a habitat for living organisms. When managing forests, it is particularly important to work in a way that protects the soil and to correctly assess soil moisture for that purpose. A new study by the University of Göttingen in collaboration with the Czech Mendel University shows that previous methods of moisture measurement are inadequate. Satellite data can help to better understand the soil moisture dynamics of forest soils. This research has implications for best practice in forest management. The findings will help people adapt to a changing climate and to refine and inform prediction models. The results were published in the Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies.

 

Colorado State University and USDA Forest Service researchers used anonymized, aggregated GPS data from smartphones to monitor how wildlife reacts to people – information that is valuable for conservation.

To achieve the European Green Deal’s goal of 25% organic agriculture by 2030, researchers argue that new genomic techniques (NGTs) should be allowed without pre-market authorization in organic as well as conventional food production. NGTs—also known as gene editing-—are classified under the umbrella of GMOs, but they involve more subtle genetic tweaks. In an opinion paper publishing May 30 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Sustainability, the researchers describe how NGTs could enable rapid development of crops that are climate resilient, produce higher yields, and require less fertilizers and pesticides.