Wild bees do $1.5 billion-worth of pollinating for six crops alone.
Science News looks beyond the domesticated honeybee for unsung pollination heroes: the bumblebees, mason bees, carpenter bees and other native bees that do an enormous […]
agronomy
Old coffee is coming back to save the business (and the species tastes great, too)
The Scientist toasts the rediscovery of Coffea stenophylla, a relative of the C. arabica coffee plant our society runs on – that’s proved itself able […]
Substituting soap-bubble robots for pollinating insects.
Cell reveals a potential replacement for pollinators – the vital insects who keep plants from almonds to corn to quinoa reproducing – by using flying […]
Science Art: Genesee County Hogs of the “Swill-Pail Breed,” from Moore’s Rural New-Yorker, March 22, 1862
Click to embiggen Swill-pail hogs from upstate New York, as featured on the front page of Moore’s Rural New-Yorker, a delightful paper that promised “Agriculture, […]
EPA approves a fungicide distributed *by bees*.
Growing Produce has a story that strikes me as super weird, about the first-ever commercial fungicide designed to be carried onto crops by bees: The […]
Chickens with Fitbits. Future of farming.
Digital Trends looks at how wearable devices could revolutionize farming and keep chickens healthier: Sitting neatly between these two size extremes is a new project […]
Climate change is stealing nutrients from food.
Science News has a series of studies that show rising CO2 levels and other climate disturbances are taking minerals and vitamins out of our vegetable […]
GMO wheat is gluten free. (Hard choices, right?)
New Scientist reports with hope for celiac-disease sufferers on a new breed of wheat that’s genetically modified not to produce inflammation-causing gluten: Gluten is the […]
Rising CO2 levels mean we’ll get less protein from our grain crops.
Science Daily has one for the “Yeah. Great.” file – research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health showing that the rising carbon […]
Science Art: Cultures of a destructive mold called Phomopsis, by USDA-ARS
Click to embiggen Might look pretty in a dish, but you don’t want to find this on your crops – it’s bad news. This image, […]
Rescuing the seeds of Aleppo
Nature finds hope for the future in war-torn Syria, where a seed-bank dedicated to preserve our ancient plants (which could save our crops from climate […]
So, one of the most common household chemicals is killing you. Surprise!
Nature analyzes the new World Health Organization (WHO) determination that Roundup weedkiller causes cancer: The cancer-research arm of the World Health Organization last week announced […]
Like a Bridge Over Troubled Cream… no, wait. South Central Skim? *Nightmilking*?
Modern Farmer reports on ongoing research that’s found that cows make more milk when listening to R.E.M. and Simon & Garfunkel: Many dairies in the […]
Science Art: “One Today,” by Richard Blanco
Miami-raised poet and engineer Richard Blanco was selected to write a poem for today’s presidential inauguration. It begins and ends with the sky. Here’s what […]
The weed that can feed the world.
Well, maybe not *directly*… but Science Daily explains how scientists are watching Arabidopsis thaliana, a fast-growing, globally found weed known as mouse-eared cress, to learn […]