Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and… groundcherries? A little-known fruit about the size of a marble could become agriculture’s next big berry crop. To prepare the groundcherry (Physalis pruinosa) for mainstream farming, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Zachary Lippman, Joyce Van Eck at the Boyce Thompson Institute, and colleagues combined genomics …
Potato’s tetraploid genome requires a more powerful genome editing system. Scientist Hiroaki Kusano of Tokyo University of Science and colleagues apply the translational enhancer dMac3 to the Cas9 expression vector to increase the amount of Cas9 proteins produced inside potato cells. dMac3 is a 161-bp region of the OsMac3 mRNA, …
Rice plants engineered to have fewer stomata—tiny openings used for gas exchange—are more tolerant to drought and resilient to future climate change, a new study has revealed. Scientists from the University of Sheffield have discovered that engineering a high-yielding rice cultivar to have reduced stomatal density, helps the crop to …
Forget vegetables with dull colors and fuzzy skin or fruits that lack of flavor—the produce aisle of the future could offer plant products that are designed for creative cooks and fussy eaters. In a review article published July in the journal Trends in Plant Science, two food researchers describe how …
Weed management is necessary to grow strong plants and quality fruit, as the watermelon plants compete with weeds for moisture and nutrients in the soil. Most of the registered herbicides are for pre-emergence or pre-transplant applications to the crop and weeds. Watermelon plants have very limited tolerances to most herbicides. …
Use of the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 could help to breed cacao trees that exhibit desirable traits such as enhanced resistance to diseases, according to Pennsylvania State plant scientists. The cacao tree, which grows in tropical regions, produces the cocoa beans that are the raw material of chocolate. Reliable productivity …
The precise substitution of an existing allele in crop species with an elite allele is a major goal in plant breeding. Single nucleotide polymorphism in the NRT1.1B gene between the indica and japonica subspecies in rice (Oryza sativa) is responsible for improved Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE). A team of researchers …
United States Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, has issued a statement to provide clarification on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) oversight of plants produced through innovative new breeding techniques which include genome editing. The statement says that under its biotechnology regulations, USDA does not regulate or have any plans …
The rate of increase in plant yields due to breeding of new varieties is currently too low, which makes researchers look for new ways to speed up the process so that sufficient food can be provided to the population of the planet by 2050. Two recently published articles in Trends …
Steroidal glycoalkaloids (SGAs) are toxic specialized metabolites found in Solanaceae crops such as potato. Potato contains the SGAs α-solanine and α-chaconine, which are produced from cholesterol. The research team from Kobe University Graduate School of Agriculture in Japan led by Akiyama Ryota aimed to develop potato lines with less or …
