AgriTech Review

Forest soils store an estimated 40% of the world's terrestrial carbon, but estimates suggest that around 15–30% of that soil carbon is lost when a forest is harvested. Tracking such losses can be tricky: wildfires, insects, disease and past forest management can all affect forest soil carbon stores, and tree type, climate and harvesting method can all affect how much carbon is lost.

A nationally representative analysis of Tanzanian census data finds that mineral fertilizer users harvest nearly 50 percent more sorghum than non-users, while fewer than 5 percent of farms apply any fertilizer at all.

A large review of 22 studies suggests that naturally occurring trans fats in dairy may affect the body very differently from industrial trans fats. Milk, butter, yogurt, and cheese naturally contain small amounts of trans fats, but a large review suggests these fats do not carry the same health risks as the industrial trans fats [...]

A new panel study of 1,400 Ethiopian farm households shows that credit access, extension services, and household resources determine whether sustainable farming practices are sustained over time rather than briefly tried and abandoned.

A first systematic survey of Nagaland's community forests reveals that vascular plant richness peaks at mid-elevations, governed by soil organic carbon and a precise precipitation threshold, while species turnover rather than species loss drives community change.

A genome-wide association study of 429 rice accessions combined with CRISPR/Cas9 validation has identified two new genes, INL1 and INL2, that regulate internode length through the gibberellin pathway and offer favorable haplotypes for breeding shorter, lodging-resistant rice varieties.

One of the hardest challenges in wildlife conservation arises when the habitat of a species in need of protection overlaps with land used by humans. Wolves and bears can kill livestock, elephants can damage homes and other property and wild boar can damage crops.

Rutgers scientists have identified natural repellents against an invasive blueberry pest, a discovery made accidentally when fruit flies invaded their laboratory.

A detailed survey of nearly 500 Ugandan coffee-farming households finds that almost a quarter of working children are exposed to hazardous tasks, with poverty, land ownership, and family kinship shaping who is put at risk and hazardous work linked to children falling behind in school.

A new review in Stress Biology details how quinoa's extraordinary salt, drought, and cold tolerance, now backed by reference genomes, a pangenome, and gene-editing tools, positions the Andean halophyte as a model crop for feeding a warming, salinizing world.

Researchers have mapped the physiological and genetic defenses that allow wild soybean to withstand saline-alkali stress, identifying co-expression modules and hub genes that could guide the breeding of resilient crops.

A multi-location genome-wide association study of 182 soft red winter wheat lines in Georgia has identified dozens of QTL, including thirteen multi-trait regions, that govern the trade-off between winter forage production and grain yield in dual-purpose wheat systems.

South Korean researchers validated a rapid LC-MS/MS method for measuring acesulfame potassium, sodium saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame in dairy products, confirming regulatory compliance across 40 market samples.

A two-year field experiment in southern China shows that co-incorporating leguminous green manure and rice straw with 40 percent less synthetic fertilizer raises double-cropped rice yields by up to 18 percent while cutting ammonia and nitrous oxide emissions by up to 30 and 45 percent respectively.

Researchers in Karnataka have developed and validated soil-test-based fertilizer prescription equations for field bean that outperformed standard recommendations by up to nearly 39 percent in validation trials.

A critical review in Plant and Soil finds that biochar could plausibly intercept labile root-exudate carbon and convert it into stable soil organic matter, but direct evidence remains limited and strongly context-dependent.

A four-year study of 400 Holstein cows on three commercial Korean farms found that methane-mitigating concentrate feed left milk yield unchanged while lowering milk protein, solid non-fat, and milk urea nitrogen and modestly raising somatic cell counts.

A new EU-wide analysis shows plant-based meat and dairy analogues have grown dramatically since 2009, but their nutritional quality varies enormously, with cheese analogues faring worst and meat analogues often earning high protein and low saturated fat claims.

A field trial in the Indian Himalayas shows that combining 75 percent of the standard mineral NPK dose with vermicompost and Azotobacter-Bacillus inoculation raised maize yields, nutrient uptake, soil fertility and microbial activity while cutting fertilizer use by a quarter.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified a calcium-controlled signaling system involving CAMTA6, PP2C49, and HKT1;1 that helps germinating seeds balance sodium and potassium under salt stress, a finding that could inform the development of salt-tolerant crops.

Urea-loaded nanoclay biopolymer composites carrying phosphorus- and zinc-solubilizing bacteria reduced nitrous oxide emissions by up to 29 percent while boosting grain micronutrient content in a maize-wheat field trial in India.

A field study of two poplar clones across five planting densities shows that wider spacing simultaneously boosts tree volume, understory plant diversity and soil quality, with machine learning and structural equation modeling pinpointing understory richness and soil water content as key drivers of productivity.

A new joint factsheet from the Horizon Europe projects FORSAID, CERBERUS and STELLA outlines how AI, remote sensing and citizen science combine to detect and manage plant pests across European forests and farmland.

A field trial in Northwestern Egypt shows that dibbling, a simple hill-sowing technique, can raise saline forage yields by up to 46 percent while lowering root-zone salt and improving water use efficiency in pearl millet and sorghum.

A new review in Discover Plants maps how metal oxide, silicon, carbon-based, and polymer nanoparticles modulate water relations, photosynthesis, and antioxidant defenses in wheat, maize, and rice, while warning that narrow dose windows, unresolved ion-versus-particle mechanisms, and environmental risks must be addressed before field deployment.

In front of most Australian houses, between the sidewalk and the road, runs a strip of land most people never really think about. In Australia, it's called the nature strip, but it goes by other names in other regions, including a verge, parkway or tree lawn.

New research shows that nitrogen-rich broadleaved leaf litter drives soil carbon sequestration by fueling microbial growth and the accumulation of stable microbial residue carbon.

Indonesian researchers used gamma radiation and PEG-simulated osmotic stress in hydroponics to identify drought-tolerant Leucaena tarramba mutant lines for breeding.

A geostatistical survey of ninety-nine cauliflower farms in Himachal Pradesh reveals that key soil properties form statistically significant spatial clusters, enabling site-specific nutrient management in fragile Himalayan terrain.

Researchers in Saskatchewan show that oxidative torrefaction converts canola straw, hemp straw, oat hulls, and wheat straw into coal-like biofuels with heating values up to 29 MJ/kg, far outperforming steam explosion pretreatment.

A new study from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University shows that treated brewery wastewater can significantly boost maize growth, soil fertility and nutrient uptake, though several water quality parameters exceed FAO irrigation limits and require careful management.

Chinese researchers have embedded phosphotungstic acid inside a zirconium-based metal-organic framework to create a reusable solid acid catalyst that converts oleic acid to biodiesel with 93.9 percent efficiency.

A decade-long experiment on Central Indian Vertisols shows organic and conservation agriculture dramatically reduce phosphorus fixation and shift the nutrient into plant-available pools.

Providing people with nutritious foods can improve the management of chronic metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension. However, most studies of "Food Is Medicine" programs have only looked at their short-term impacts—on the scale of weeks to months.

A protein encoded by rice grassy stunt virus remodels rice cell walls by reducing cellulose and increasing lignin, making plants more susceptible to multiple viruses yet unexpectedly more resistant to the brown planthopper that transmits the virus.

A sweeping survey of rhizosphere soils from four Chinese deserts shows that rare and abundant bacterial taxa around the sand-stabilizing plant Artemisia desertorum respond to drought through fundamentally different ecological rules.

A national-scale analysis of 554 Nigerian soil samples shows that soil organic carbon is the strongest predictor of plant-available phosphorus, with texture, iron and aluminium oxides, and acidity shaping how the nutrient is retained or released.

The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture has appointed José Peiretti as its new row crop precision agriculture Extension specialist, tasked with generating independent, statewide data on which technologies truly benefit growers.

A coupled RUSLE-SWPT modeling study shows soil loss in Ethiopia's Upper Omo Gibe Basin rose 44 percent over three decades, threatening farms and the Gibe III hydropower reservoir.

A sweeping new review argues that RNA interference could become a cornerstone of sustainable crop protection, but variable pest responses, fragile dsRNA, and fragmented regulation still stand between laboratory promise and field-scale reality.

Inoculating tobacco with the mycorrhizal fungus Claroideoglomus etunicatum enriches beneficial rhizosphere bacteria and strengthens microbial cooperation, boosting plant growth and antioxidant defenses in nutrient-poor soil.

A scoping review of 129 studies finds that One Health modelling for agri-food systems is methodologically ambitious but institutionally narrow, prompting a new modular framework for governments.

A two-year study on Burkina Faso's unique 60-year field experiment shows that sorghum-cowpea rotation significantly reduces weed ground cover while fertilization regimes strongly drive weed biomass in Sudano-Sahelian agriculture.

An integrated genomic study of 420 Hu sheep has identified the gene ZNF280B as a key regulator of muscle growth and carcass traits, validated through cell-level functional experiments.

A new laboratory study shows that rising temperatures and protein-poor diets drive fall armyworm larvae to cannibalize each other more often, modestly increasing transmission of their lethal baculovirus.

A survey of 168 donkey farmers in central Malawi finds zero formal training, widespread inbreeding and no organized markets for an animal that rural households depend on daily.

For decades, European policymakers have poured billions of euros into two very different strategies for making agriculture greener: paying farmers to take land out of production for wildflower strips, and supporting a wholesale conversion to organic farming. Both approaches are

Deep in the Apennine mountains of central Italy, European beech forests that were carefully reshaped by conservationists a decade ago are now offering one of the most detailed portraits yet of how forest management can steer biodiversity. A large team of Italian researchers has published an open dataset that simultaneously documents forest structure and the […]

Salt is quietly strangling some of the world’s most productive farmland, and few crops feel the squeeze more than the humble garden pea. A new study from researchers at DAV University in Jalandhar, India, published in Discover Plants, reports that a simple pairing of two natural allies, the nitrogen-fixing bacterium Rhizobium leguminosarum and a seaweed […]

Deep in the peat of a calcareous fen in Ontario, Canada, methane is quietly accumulating in bubbles trapped beneath the waterlogged surface, waiting for the right moment to escape. A new study published in Plant and Soil by Ryan J. Kangro and Maria Strack of the University of Waterloo has taken one of the most […]

In the smallholder fields of southern Ethiopia, where the average maize plot covers less than a hectare and is often split into even smaller parcels, a quiet policy experiment is producing striking results. A new study published in BMC Agriculture finds that farmers who grow maize collectively through cluster farming are substantially more efficient than […]

In the small agricultural supply shops that dot the landscape of Tanzania’s Morogoro region, a quiet economic drama is unfolding with consequences that reach far beyond the shop counter. Smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa adopt modern agricultural inputs, including fertilizer, at persistently low rates, and that reluctance translates directly into low agricultural productivity. Previous research […]

In the Kwashe industrial area of Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan, more than fifty small private refineries process crude oil with little regard for environmental standards. The consequences are written into the ground: an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 tons of crude oil and refined products such as diesel, gasoline, kerosene and lubricating oils escape into the surrounding […]

When floodwaters swallow a field, the transformation that follows is not just visible above ground. Beneath the surface, one of biology’s most intricate chemical conversations falls silent, then restarts in a radically different language. A new review published in Plant and Soil by Sang-Mo Kang, Ibrahim Khan and colleagues at Kyungpook National University synthesizes what […]

A humble ingredient that has flavoured Chinese kitchens and herbal pharmacies for centuries is now attracting serious attention from food scientists searching for affordable weapons against the global nutrition crisis. Chenpi, the dried ripe peel of the mandarin orange Citrus reticulata Blanco and its cultivars, sits at the intersection of food and medicine in Chinese […]

Beneath the scattered forest patches of Punjab and Chandigarh lies a hidden architecture of nutrients that scientists have now mapped for the first time at regional scale. A new study published in Discover Soil analyzed 954 soil samples drawn from 318 locations across 17 forest divisions, spanning three depth intervals from the surface down to […]

In the misty hills of Darjeeling, where the world’s most prized tea grows in acidic soils, a team of researchers has uncovered a hidden workforce that could transform how tea is cultivated. Scientists at the University of North Bengal have identified five strains of phosphate-solubilizing bacteria from tea garden soil that do far more than […]

Plant scientists have unveiled a deceptively simple trick that could reshape how the world breeds disease-resistant crops: they have taken immune receptors that are normally locked in a permanently switched-on state, strapped a molecular tripwire to them, and turned that dangerous autoactivity into a precision weapon against viruses. The strategy, described in a recent Nature […]

Every sack of synthetic fertilizer and every spray of pesticide that reaches a farm field does more than feed or protect a crop. It also perturbs an invisible, teeming underworld of soil microbes whose metabolic handiwork determines how much nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane drifts from the soil into the atmosphere. A new review […]

In the parched drawdown zones of the lower Jinsha River in Yunnan Province, China, a fierce contest is underway, and most of it is happening underground. Parthenium hysterophorus, one of the world’s most notorious invasive weeds, has been quietly reshaping the chemistry and microbial ecology of the soil immediately surrounding its roots, according to a […]

Deep beneath the scorched savannas of southwestern China, an unassuming cast of microscopic worms is challenging one of ecology’s most stubborn assumptions. Soil nematodes, threadlike animals barely visible to the naked eye, have long been treated as prisoners of water: where soils dry out, these creatures are expected to dwindle, and where moisture returns, they […]

On the misty slopes of Sri Lanka’s central highlands, tea bushes cling to hillsides so steep that every heavy monsoon shower threatens to wash away the very nutrients farmers pay dearly to supply. A new field experiment conducted at Kenilworth Estate in Ginigathhena has now put hard numbers on that hidden drain, and the findings […]

Plants are quietly engineering the ground beneath them. Up to a fifth of the carbon a plant fixes through photosynthesis leaks out of its roots into the soil, and among those exuded compounds are polyphenols, the stress-driven secondary metabolites that plants deploy against drought, pathogens, and other threats. A new study published in Advanced Science […]

Agricultural extension services, the advisory networks that carry scientific knowledge from research institutions to the world’s smallholder farmers, have long been treated as a simple pipeline for delivering better seeds and better techniques. A new systematic review published in BMC Agriculture argues that this picture is far too narrow. Drawing on 45 studies published between […]

More than a decade after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident scattered radioactive cesium-137 across Japanese farmland, scientists are still searching for affordable ways to pull the persistent isotope out of the soil. A new study from researchers at Nihon University in Fujisawa, Japan, offers a strikingly simple twist: ordinary sodium chloride, the same compound that […]

For decades, the standard way to judge whether a polluted soil is dangerous has been to ask how many individual species can tolerate the contaminant in question. Toxicologists compile laboratory thresholds for earthworms, plants, and other soil-dwelling organisms, fit a cumulative curve to the values, and read off a hazardous concentration that protects some chosen […]

Lichens, those crusty, leafy and shrubby organisms that cling to rocks, tree bark and soil across the planet, have long been dismissed as botanical wallpaper. A sweeping new review published in Discover Chemistry argues they may instead be one of the most underexploited chemical treasure troves in nature. Written by Bijayananda Sahoo, Shubham Pradhan, Satyabrata […]

Deep learning has swept through agriculture with promises of smarter irrigation, but a new four-year study from the University of Georgia’s Stripling Irrigation Research Park delivers a refreshingly sober message: when it comes to predicting how dry a peanut field’s root zone will become over the next week, the simplest possible forecast—assuming nothing changes—remains remarkably […]

A survey of poultry farmers in north-central Nigeria has revealed a striking blind spot in one of the world’s fastest-growing livestock sectors: nearly all of the farmers questioned knew almost nothing about the parasitic worms that quietly drain productivity from their flocks. The study, published in BMC Agriculture by researchers at the University of Ilorin, […]

Aquaculture has become one of the fastest growing food production systems on the planet, but its success has come with an uncomfortable side effect: nutrient-dense wastewater that threatens rivers, coastal waters and the very ecosystems the industry depends on. A new study published in the journal Blue Biotechnology suggests an elegant way out of this […]

As climate volatility tightens its grip on global agriculture, plant scientists are turning to an increasingly sophisticated version of the CRISPR toolbox to rewire how crops respond to drought, salinity, heat, and disease. A comprehensive review published in Plant Cell Reports by Nitya Nandan Sharma, Anjali Kumari, Ira Vashisht, and Manoj Kumar Sharma of the […]

In the misty hills of Hunan Province, China, an unusual botanical quirk has frustrated engineers for decades. The camellia tree, Camellia oleifera, produces some of the world’s most prized cooking oil, but it flowers and fruits at the same time. Walk up to a mature tree during harvest season and you will see delicate white […]

Tobacco is famous for what it does to human health, but a new study suggests the plant may also be quietly sabotaging the crops that grow in its wake. Researchers at Aligarh Muslim University in India have shown that the roots of Nicotiana tabacum release a cocktail of chemical compounds that linger in the surrounding […]

Every kilogram of milk that reaches a breakfast table carries an invisible environmental price tag, a figure scientists call the carbon footprint. Calculating that number accurately is far harder than it sounds, particularly in countries where dairy farming looks nothing like the industrialized systems of North America and Europe. A new study from the laboratory […]

Every insect carries an invisible cargo of microorganisms. Bacteria, fungi, and other microbes live on the cuticle, in the gut, in the hemocoel, and even inside specialized cells called bacteriocytes, forming partnerships that can determine whether an insect thrives or perishes. A new review published in the journal Crop Health argues that these intimate relationships, […]

A sweeping surveillance study of the dairy supply chain in Yazd province, Iran, has revealed that raw milk is the principal reservoir of Listeria monocytogenes, a foodborne pathogen that ranks among the deadliest threats circulating in the global food system. Researchers collected 370 samples spanning raw milk, pasteurised commercial milk, milking equipment, transport containers, and […]

Robotic fruit picking has long promised to ease the labor crunch facing orchard growers, but the promise has repeatedly collided with a stubborn technical reality: a robot’s camera sees a chaotic world of overlapping leaves, dappled light, and fruit hanging at awkward angles. A study published in BMC Plant Biology by Hongyan Zhu, Runlong Cao, […]

Insect pests are quietly winning a war that most of the world never sees. With an estimated four to six million arthropod species spread across nearly every ecosystem on Earth, crop damage and disease transmission caused by insects continue to erode food security and farm incomes on a global scale. For decades, the answer has […]

Beneath every sugarcane field lies an invisible workforce of bacteria and fungi that quietly decides whether the crop thrives or struggles. A sweeping new analysis of global research has now mapped, in unprecedented detail, how farming choices—from fertiliser regimes to intercropping and straw management—reshape these underground communities. The findings, published as a scoping review in […]

As the 2026 El Niño intensifies across the Amazon basin, a landmark study published in Science has delivered one of the most rigorous answers yet to a question that has long divided conservation science: when money is limited, is it better to protect the forests that still stand, or to replant the ones that have […]

AI-powered drones are transforming field monitoring, turning aerial data into actionable intelligence that helps agribusinesses prioritize inspections and improve efficiency. The post Beyond Crop Scouting: How AI-Powered Drones Could Reshape Precision Agriculture appeared first on CropLife.

When the COVID-19 pandemic severed supply chains, closed markets, and stripped millions of Nigerians of their incomes, an unlikely buffer emerged in backyards, on balconies, and in small urban plots. Home gardening, the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, and herbs around the household, appears to have played a measurable role in protecting dietary quality during one […]

A team of researchers in Nigeria has developed a strikingly simple way to catch dangerous foodborne bacteria: tiny particles grown by a common soil microbe that flip from colorless to intense red when they encounter two of the world’s most notorious food pathogens. The study, published in Discover Biotechnology, describes iron oxide-gold nanocomposites biosynthesized by […]

A fatty acid already prized in nutrition circles may have found its most compelling role yet: shielding the mammary gland from the inflammatory damage that plagues dairy cows worldwide. In a new study published in Food Science & Nutrition, researchers report that supplementing the diets of mice with conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, significantly blunted […]

For decades, knowing what lies beneath a farmer’s feet has meant one thing: bagging up soil, sending it to a laboratory, and waiting days or weeks for a chemical report. That waiting game may soon be over. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Information Technology Dharwad have demonstrated that a commercially available, low-cost electrochemical soil […]

Every week, fleets of road sweepers trundle through cities collecting a gritty, unglamorous slurry of litter, leaves, grit, glass and plastics from the streets. Most of that material, once washed and separated, ends up in landfill or incineration, at considerable cost to councils and the environment. Now a team of researchers in Manchester has shown […]

In a finding that could reshape how engineers build roads and embankments across South Asia, researchers in Bangladesh have shown that a modest dose of coal combustion waste can dramatically strengthen the very soils that foundations and highways rest upon. The study, published in Discover Soil, examined fly ash from the Barapukuria Coal-Fired Thermal Power […]

A team of plant microbiome researchers has launched a free, continuously updated database that collects, organizes and serves up the growing body of evidence on small molecules produced by plant-associated microbes that help their hosts fight off disease. The resource, called drSMALL, short for the Disease Resistance-Shaping Small Molecules Database, was described in a letter […]

On a growing number of farms in southwestern Nigeria, chickens and fish share the same piece of land in a system that is as ingenious as it is potentially dangerous. Poultry houses are built directly over fish ponds or right beside them, and the droppings from the birds fall into the water below, fertilizing blooms […]

Across the eroded highlands of northwestern Ethiopia, some of the world’s most ambitious soil conservation campaigns are being built by hand, village by village, slope by slope. Millions of days of communal labor have gone into stone-faced soil bunds, check dams, micro-trenches and hillside terraces, all designed to hold back the runoff that strips the […]

Every year, roughly a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, a figure that carries a staggering environmental price tag in the form of greenhouse gas emissions, squandered water and land resources, and mounting pressure on overflowing landfills. A new open-access review published in Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts argues […]

Cultured meat has long promised a future in which real animal protein is grown in bioreactors rather than raised in pastures, but the field has quietly been stuck on a deceptively simple question: which cells should we grow? A comprehensive new review published in Food Science of Animal Resources argues that the answer, for now […]

The FDA detected Cyclospora in two environmental samples linked to a lettuce outbreak that sickened 12,883 people, but said the findings did not establish the contamination route.

For years, agricultural scientists have promoted crop diversification as one of the most reliable levers for building soil organic carbon, the vast carbon reservoir that underlies both soil fertility and climate mitigation. The logic seemed straightforward: adding legumes or rice to a rotation changes the amount and quality of plant-derived carbon entering the soil, and […]

Broccoli plants grown beneath semi-transparent, magenta-colored solar panels used sunlight far more efficiently than crops grown in full sun, according to a study published October 2 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Physical Science. The research, conducted at an experimental site on a farm in Sweden, found that the shaded plants achieved a 4.5-fold […]

As heatwaves scorch farmland, soils grow saltier and heavy metals linger in the ground, agriculture is running out of easy answers. A review published in the journal Crop Health argues that one of the most promising tools may be a molecule so small and so ordinary that it has been hiding in plain sight: glycine […]

A flowering shrub better known for adorning tropical gardens than for stocking pharmacists’ shelves is now commanding serious attention from natural products chemists. Clerodendrum chinense, commonly called the Chinese glory bower or Honolulu rose, has been the subject of a comprehensive integrative review published in Discover Chemistry that pulls together decades of scattered evidence on […]

Synthetic biology has moved from a provocative idea to one of the fastest-moving disciplines in modern science, and a comprehensive new review published in Discover Biotechnology maps just how far the field has traveled. Authors Pelinsu Karataş and Furkan Ayaz of Biruni University trace the discipline from its conceptual origins in the 1910s, when Stéphane […]

DoorDash has revealed more details of its drone program, while Amazon is facing noise complaints over its drones.

Hidden beneath every productive pasture lies a bustling underground economy, and a new field experiment suggests farmers can tip the balance in their favor by recruiting the right microbial partners. Researchers at Yasouj University in Iran report that combining arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi with a modest dose of phosphorus fertilizer dramatically improves both forage output and […]