22+ hour, 31+ min ago   (80+ words) Bacterial wilt, caused by the soil-borne pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum, is one of the most destructive plant diseases in the world, striking tomatoes, potatoes, bananas and hundreds of other crops. Once the bacterium establishes itself in a field, it is notoriously…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago   (669+ words) Cadmium is one of the most stubborn contaminants in the world’s farmland, and in China it has become a quiet but persistent threat to the food supply. The toxic heavy metal, which enters soils through mining, smelting, industrial emissions, and…...

1+ day, 2+ hour ago   (96+ words) Rice paddies are among the most productive agricultural ecosystems on Earth, feeding billions of people across Asia and beyond. Yet beneath the flooded fields lies a complex microbial world whose balance determines whether the soil stays fertile or degrades over…...

1+ day, 9+ hour ago   (55+ words) A humble material with roots in ancient Amazonian agriculture is quietly becoming one of the most promising tools in the fight against water pollution. Biochar, the carbon-rich solid produced by heating biomass in oxygen-limited conditions, has been used for more…...

1+ day, 11+ hour ago   (599+ words) Plant roots are far more than simple anchors. They are living interfaces, constantly negotiating with an invisible world of bacteria and fungi that surround them in the soil....

1+ day, 12+ hour ago   (68+ words) Zinc is one of those nutrients that plants cannot live without, yet too much of it can quietly poison them. In agricultural regions where soils are contaminated by industrial activity, mining, or over-application of fertilizers, the line between essential micronutrient…...

1+ day, 14+ hour ago   (79+ words) Plants cannot run from their enemies, so they have evolved an extraordinary arsenal of molecular sentinels that detect invading pathogens and launch defences within minutes. Yet this vigilance comes at a price: every burst of immune activity diverts energy, nutrients…...

2+ day, 5+ hour ago   (72+ words) Diazomethane is one of organic chemistry’s most useful and most feared reagents. The simple molecule CH2N2 is a superb methylating agent, capable of converting carboxylic acids into methyl esters with almost effortless efficiency, and it plays a quiet but essential role…...

2+ day, 6+ hour ago   (752+ words) Micronutrients such as iron, zinc, copper, manganese and boron have long been treated by agricultural science as little more than yield-boosters — elements needed in trace amounts for photosynthesis, enzyme activity and crop quality. A major new review published in Plant…...

2+ day, 7+ hour ago   (85+ words) In the continuing battle between crops and the pathogens that besiege them, one of the most economically punishing confrontations takes place out of sight, inside the vascular tissue of the cotton plant. There, the soil-borne fungus Verticillium dahliae colonizes the…...