Seeds News

September 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Stopping Plants from Passing Viruses to Their Progeny

Sep. 19, 2024 — Scientists have learned how plants keep viruses from being passed to their offspring, a finding that could ensure healthier crops. The discovery could also help reduce the transmission of diseases from mothers to human ...

Century-Old Experiment Secures Beer and Whiskey's Future

Sep. 11, 2024 — Thanks to an experiment started before the Great Depression, researchers have pinpointed the genes behind the remarkable adaptability of barley, a key ingredient in beer and whiskey. These insights could ensure the crop's continued survival amidst ...

Killing Giant Ragweed Just Got Harder for Some Wisconsin Farmers

Aug. 21, 2024 — When giant ragweed takes hold in a crop field, the towering weed reduces yield and sends plumes of its famously allergy-inducing pollen into the air. There are few tools available to thwart the menace, especially for farmers growing non-GMO ...

Researchers Uncover the Secrets of 'Plant Puberty'

Aug. 20, 2024 — Researchers have identified the genetic changes linked to why plants go through a developmental change similar to 'puberty' at different rates, a discovery which could lead to better crop ...

Latest Headlines

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The Unexpected Protein Connection in Maize Growth and Defense

Sep. 17, 2024 — Recent research has revealed that a family of proteins called COI1, previously associated with defense mechanisms in other plant species like Arabidopsis and rice, primarily regulates growth in maize ...

Team Unravels Regulatory Mechanism That Prevents Stem Cell Differentiation and Maintains Gender Balance in Vascular Plants

Sep. 12, 2024 — Plant scientists have identified a protein that plays a previously unknown role in controlling cell differentiation and determining gender in ...

Why Do Plants Wiggle? New Study Provides Answers

Aug. 15, 2024 — Decades after his voyage on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin became fascinated by why plants move as they grow -- spinning and twisting into corkscrews. Now, more than 150 years later, a new study may ...

Giant Fossil Seeds from Borneo Record Ancient Plant Migration

Aug. 14, 2024 — Ancient fossil beans about the size of modern limes, and among the largest seeds in the fossil record, may provide new insight into the evolution of today's diverse Southeast Asian and Australian ...

Plants Offer Fruit to Insects to Disperse Dust-Like Seeds

Aug. 7, 2024 — Fruit exist to invite animals to disperse the swallowed seeds. A research team found that plants targeting insects rather than birds or mammals for this service are more common than previously ...

Precise Genetics: New CRISPR Method Enables Efficient DNA Modification

July 30, 2024 — A research group has developed a new method that further improves the existing CRISPR/Cas technologies: it allows a more precise and seamless introduction of tags into proteins at the gene level. ...

Scientists Devise Method to Secure Earth's Biodiversity on the Moon

July 31, 2024 — New research led proposes a plan to safeguard Earth's imperiled biodiversity by cryogenically preserving biological material on the moon. The moon's permanently shadowed craters are cold enough for ...

Cracking Open a Tasty Menu for Captive Marsupials to Sink Their Teeth Into

July 9, 2024 — From sifting through topsoil for native truffles to cracking open hard shells of seeds and nuts to munch on the tasty kernels, Australia bettongs and potoroos are described as 'ecosystem engineers' ...

Wastewater Is a Viable Medium for Growing Lettuce in Hydroponic Systems

July 3, 2024 — Urban agriculture has the potential to improve food security through local, efficient, and sustainable food production. Examples of urban food systems include hydroponics, where plants grow in a ...

Blue and Great Tits Deploy Surprisingly Powerful Memories to Find Food

July 3, 2024 — Blue and great tits recall what they have eaten in the past, where they found the food and when they found it, a new study shows. In the first experiment of its kind to involve wild animals, blue and ...

Sixty-Million-Year-Old Grape Seeds Reveal How the Death of the Dinosaurs May Have Paved the Way for Grapes to Spread

July 1, 2024 — Scientists discovered the oldest fossil grapes in the Western Hemisphere, which help show how after the death of the dinosaurs, grapes spread across the ...

Insecticides Contributed to Loss of Butterflies Across American Midwest, Study Finds

June 20, 2024 — Insecticide use is a major factor causing a decrease in the size and diversity of butterfly populations across the US Midwest, according to a new ...

Scientists Engineer Yellow-Seeded Camelina With High Oil Output

June 11, 2024 — Using tools of modern genetics, plant biochemists have produced a new high-yielding oilseed crop variety -- a yellow-seeded variety of Camelina sativa, a close relative of canola, that accumulates ...

Orchids Support Seedlings Through 'Parental Nurture' Via Shared Underground Fungal Networks

May 29, 2024 — Orchid plants nurture their seedlings via an underground fungal network, new research has ...

Roots Are a Key to Drought-Tolerant Maize

May 22, 2024 — Maize can grow successfully in very different local conditions. An international study has now demonstrated the important role of the plant root system. The researchers analyzed more than 9,000 ...

How Plants 'Mate' for Life and Repel Other Suitors

May 21, 2024 — Researchers have used a unique microscopic technique to examine the dynamics of pollen tubes in the Arabidopsis plant. They were able to observe the mechanism of one-to-one pollen tube guidance, a ...

Like Dad and Like Mum ... All in One Plant

May 13, 2024 — Scientists have established a system to generate clonal sex cells in tomato plants and used them to design the genomes of offspring. The fertilization of a clonal egg from one parent by a clonal ...

New Record Holder for Smallest Dispersers of Ingested Seeds: Woodlice

May 8, 2024 — Even bugs as small as woodlice can disperse seeds they eat, setting a new record for smallest animal recorded to do so. The discovery underscores the crucial yet often overlooked role that small ...

Calcium Can Protect Potato Plants from Bacterial Wilt

May 1, 2024 — Scientists have discovered that calcium plays a significant role in enhancing the resistance of potato plants to bacterial ...

Discovery of Mechanism Plants Use to Change Seed Oil Could Impact Industrial, Food Oils

Apr. 30, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a new mechanism of oil biosynthesis and found a way to genetically engineer a type of test plant to more efficiently produce different kinds of seed oil that it otherwise ...

The Spiciness of Mustard May Depend on Soil Microbes

Apr. 22, 2024 — New study finds microbes may influence the taste of mustard ...

Making Crops Colorful for Easier Weeding

Apr. 17, 2024 — To make weeding easier, scientists suggest bioengineering crops to be colorful or to have differently shaped leaves so that they can be more easily distinguished from their wild and weedy ...

Seed Ferns: Plants Experimented With Complex Leaf Vein Networks 201 Million Years Ago

Apr. 16, 2024 — According to a research team led by palaeontologists, the net-like leaf veining typical for today's flowering plants developed much earlier than previously thought, but died out again several ...

Tropical Forests Can't Recover Naturally Without Fruit-Eating Birds

Apr. 15, 2024 — Natural forest regeneration is hailed as a cost-effective way to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon. However, the fragmentation of tropical forests has restricted the movement of large birds ...

Biofortified Rice to Combat Deficiencies

Apr. 11, 2024 — Vitamin B1 is an essential micronutrient for human beings. Its deficiency is the cause of numerous diseases of the nervous and cardiovascular systems. Researchers have achieved a significant advance ...

Summer Solstice Triggers Synchronized Beech Tree Reproduction Across Europe

Mar. 13, 2024 — A new study has found that the summer solstice acts as a 'starting gun' to synchronize beech tree reproduction across vast distances in Europe, affecting ecosystem ...

Rainforest's Next Generation of Trees Threatened 30 Years After Logging

Mar. 12, 2024 — Rainforest seedlings are more likely to survive in natural forests than in places where logging has happened -- even if tree restoration projects have taken place, new research ...

Small Dietary Changes Can Cut Your Carbon Footprint by 25%

Feb. 29, 2024 — New research provides compelling evidence that partially substituting animal with plant protein foods can increase life expectancy and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Importantly, it also suggests ...

Modeling Tree Masting

Feb. 21, 2024 — The effects of a phenomenon called tree masting on ecosystems and food webs can be better understood thanks to new theoretical models validated by real world ...

Asexual Propagation of Crop Plants Gets Closer

Feb. 15, 2024 — When the female gametes in plants become fertilized, a signal from the sperm activates cell division, leading to the formation of new plant seeds. This activation can also be deliberately triggered ...