AgriTech Review

At the University of Missouri, plant scientist Ron Mittler is rewriting the playbook for how scientists study life by asking what happens when living organisms face multiple stresses at once.

University of Tennessee researchers are combining plant-derived nanocellulose with metal-organic frameworks to create portable materials that detect and break down pesticide and fertilizer residues under ultraviolet light.

The University of Stirling has won £2.4 million to lead a 48-month transdisciplinary project tackling antimicrobial resistance in Vietnam's pangasius catfish aquaculture industry.

Treating excised Bacopa monnieri plantlets with methyl jasmonate triples bacoside content within 24 hours by switching on key triterpenoid biosynthetic genes, offering a simple post-harvest strategy to boost the medicinal quality of this Ayurvedic memory herb.

Last year saw a "solid breakthrough" in the exports of Russian agricultural technologies, Oksana Lut said

A new study on ancient food production in tropical Belize, co-led by the University of New Mexico and published in Communications Earth & Environment, provides evidence that people in the Maya-speaking region were dedicated farmers thousands of years before the first large villages emerged.

Researchers have encapsulated fragile gardenia yellow pigment inside a zinc L-aspartate bio-metal-organic framework to create a stable solid hybrid pigment that dyes silk with good fastness and added antibacterial and antioxidant properties.

A new study explores what goes on in the brain when mice get high on marijuana

New capital will help Myca widen its geographical footprint across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and India. The post Myca raises $1.3m pre-seed to put AI agents in charge of agribusiness field operations appeared first on AgFunderNews.

A new RUSLE-GIS study maps soil erosion across India's drought-prone Jonk River Basin with 97 percent accuracy, identifying steep, unprotected plateau terrain as the dominant driver of soil loss.

DoorDash, the leading food delivery app, processed 970 million orders in its second quarter this year and generated $4.5 billion in revenue. A 10-person startup called Bites is a blip in comparison: It has just around 300 restaurants signed up in the Bay Area, where it's operating as a pre-seed startup. But this summer, Bites caught DoorDash's attention. In August, a slew of restaurants in the Bay Area received a strange email from DoorDash, warning businesses that they may be listed without their consent on Bites. The form letter, copies of which were seen by The Verge, said that DoorDash had heard from "several partners" that were adde … Read the full story at The Verge.

The fifth annual Farm Robotics Challenge will enable students from middle school through graduate school to enter agricultural automation projects and compete for prizes. The contest is held each year by the University of California and USDA.

Colorado State University researchers planted 40,000 native sedge seedlings in Yosemite's degraded Tuolumne Meadows and found that while soil health is slowly improving, full carbon recovery will take 25 to 50 years.

arXiv:2610.08603v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Early stress detection in crops is a necessity today to improve efficiency and reduce waste of time, money, and effort. However, most modern techniques, such as hyperspectral imaging and AI-based systems, are too costly and complex for medium and small-scale farmers to implement. This paper showcases CropSentry, a low-cost, ground-based multi-robot system that uses multimodal leaf sensing to continuously monitor crop health by tracking stress levels. The system comprises two autonomous bots that continuously detect leaf color and environmental data row by row. The observations are spatially mapped and sent over to the master bot, which uses color-coded row segments to generate a real-time web-based dashboard displaying crop health. After 63 observations were collected during the experiments, the results showed an overall crop health classification accuracy of 84.12%, with 82.60% for healthy plants, 88% for nutrient-deficient plants, and

arXiv:2610.07087v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Despite rapid advances in artificial intelligence, reliable real-world plant disease detection remains a persistent challenge. Visual and deep learning approaches have shown promising results, but their deployment under field conditions remains limited. A key bottleneck is the reliance on laboratory-generated datasets that lack environmental diversity, realistic backgrounds, and balanced class distributions, resulting in poor generalization. In contrast, datasets collected directly from agricultural environments capture natural variability and better reflect challenges faced by farmers across regions. This review presents a critical analysis of visual and deep learning approaches for plant disease detection, with emphasis on plant disease datasets. It establishes a taxonomy based on acquisition setting, accessibility, plant diversity, disease composition, class structure, and imbalance severity, and examines their implications for model

A 60-day incubation study of Loess Plateau orchard soils shows biodegradable PLA microplastics sharply increased carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions while conventional PE and PET plastics suppressed them, revealing a climate trade-off in biodegradable plastics.

A field study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows that loading the plant hormone gibberellic acid into biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles more than doubled grape cluster weight compared with conventional treatment, pointing toward greener and more efficient crop production.

A field trial in arid sandy land shows that mixing crushed alfalfa and ryegrass residues into topsoil slows infiltration, curbs evaporation, and more than doubles vegetation coverage and biomass.

A field study in Alabama used X-ray computed tomography to show that pine biochar applied to sandy soil clogs and reshapes existing pores rather than improving water retention within a single growing season.

Farmers use a manufactured version of a natural plant hormone called gibberellic acid to improve the health and growth of crops, but it is highly sensitive to heat and light. A study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows that loading gibberellic acid into biodegradable nanoparticles can improve grape yield and quality, making it a promising and environmentally friendly approach for sustainable agricultural production.

A new review in Plant and Soil shows that engineered nano-micro materials and plant growth-promoting bacteria can protect and enhance each other, offering a synergistic route to sustainable crop production.

A sweeping review finds that intercropping, agroforestry, and crop rotation can rebuild degraded soils, cut pest pressure by up to 50 percent, and secure food supplies for a growing planet.

Climate change and agricultural development have brought a new goose population to China with unique migratory patterns, a study has found. In an article on the Chinese Academy of Sciences website, researchers from the CAS Institute of Zoology said they had discovered a “genetically distinct” population of swan geese that emerged in Beijing over the past century. They said the timing of their arrival coincided with environmental shifts in the region during the early 20th century – namely climate...

A $1 million USDA-funded study led by the University of Rhode Island will examine how the rapid rise of dollar stores shapes food purchases and nutrition in rural and low-income communities.

A first-of-its-kind systematic review of 190 studies finds that HASM, Euclidean-enhanced machine learning, and Bayesian Maximum Entropy each excel under different data conditions, with no universal winner for predicting soil properties.

A new review maps how the molecular structure, processing history, and triacylglycerol architecture of insect oils determine their quality, digestion, and readiness for food applications.

A new bibliometric analysis of 543 publications maps three decades of exponential growth in research on biochar as a remedy for the world's water- and nutrient-starved sandy soils.

Research by INRAE and AgroParisTech suggests that global warming could have an overall positive effect on sorghum yields in Europe. Sorghum is a promising alternative to maize in livestock feed. Additionally, the crop requires less water and can tolerate higher temperatures. The researchers carried out simulations that used past climate data and future climate scenarios with the broader goal of developing new strategies for European agriculture. Their results were published in Earth's Future.

Researchers in Aligarh, India, developed a new Standard Weight Scoring method for soil quality indices that outperforms traditional approaches in detecting chemical degradation of farmlands irrigated with polluted Kali River water.

Fabrice Diangoné Bi Tra, a doctoral student in the 100 Ph.D.s for Africa program of the UM6P-EPFL Excellence in Africa initiative, has published a new study in Agriculture.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Massimo Iorizzo, a horticultural science professor with expertise in plant breeding, genetics and nutritional genomics of small fruit and vegetable crops, will become director of NC State University’s Plants for Human Health Institute (PHHI), effective Oct. 1. Iorizzo, who has served as the associate director of PHHI since 2024, will lead a team of […] The post Massimo Iorizzo Named Director of NC State’s Plants for Human Health Institute appeared first on Morning Ag Clips.

CLEMSON, S.C. — A Clemson University doctoral student has developed a $21 floating platform that drones carry into remote wetlands, helping researchers record wildlife in places not easily reached on foot. Akshit Suthar’s design carries an autonomous recording unit, or ARU, which records sounds from birds and other wildlife. A drone lowers the unit onto […] The post Clemson Student Uses Drones to Bring Wildlife Recorders Into Remote Wetlands appeared first on Morning Ag Clips.

Microalgae (microscopic organisms that use light and carbon dioxide to grow) can be used to make ingredients and food for animals, pigments and potentially renewable fuels. But growing microalgae efficiently at an industrial scale is difficult.

Researchers found microalgae can be grown using waste from cultivated meat production, before being processed and fed back

A survey of 219 communal cattle farming households in Lupane District, Zimbabwe, identifies affordability, awareness, and institutional trust as the key barriers to insurance adoption and proposes a tri-modular AI framework combining biometric identification, satellite drought triggers, and voice-first local-language interfaces to overcome them.

A study of 187 farms in Ecuador's Amazon found that cacao and coffee agroforestry and silvopastoral systems store 20 to 27 percent more topsoil carbon and maintain better fertility than monocultures and treeless pastures.

A Brazilian field study shows that rainfall and soil moisture, not a fixed calendar interval, determine how quickly atrazine dissipates after burndown applications and whether soybean can be safely sown sooner.

A new study shows that 50% ethanol extracts of Indian borage and neem leaves deliver strong antioxidant activity while 95% ethanol extracts excel at killing foodborne pathogens, revealing solvent polarity as a simple lever for designing natural preservatives.

A comprehensive review maps the molecular machinery of plant gravitropism and predicts 69 candidate genes that could let breeders engineer denser planting, stronger stalks and deeper roots in maize and other crops.

A rural Georgia farmer who voted for Donald Trump says a friend's father's deportation led her to plan a vote for Sen. Jon Ossoff.

ODYSS N1 uses a camera and AI to log meals automatically, but its food recognition and calorie estimates still lack independent device-specific validation. The post ODYSS N1 AI Necklace Wants to Track Everything You Eat Without Food Logging appeared first on TechRepublic.

A new book by University of Illinois professor Bobby J. Smith II recovers the history of the New Farmers of America, the segregated-era organization that taught tens of thousands of rural Black boys about farming and leadership.

A conceptual study proposes adapting cement grinding techniques, combined with biochar and solar power, to transform coarse desert sand into water-retaining, nutrient-holding agricultural soil.

Researchers in India show that Brassica juncea leaf extracts rich in isothiocyanates and other allelochemicals suppress green amaranth germination, growth, and photosystem II photochemistry through overwhelming oxidative stress, suggesting a plant-based alternative to synthetic herbicides.

Replacing soil in renovated pear orchards doubles tree yields by reshaping rhizosphere microbes and eliminating a growth-inhibiting alkaloid, a new study finds.

Researchers at Chiba University have developed a flexible bio-based plastic that, after its useful life, can be chemically converted into fertilizer that successfully grows crops.

A three-year Chinese field trial shows that pairing controlled-release blended fertilizer with dense planting raises rice yields by up to 45 percent while keeping methane, nitrous oxide, and ammonia losses low.

A systematic review of 11 studies finds that SNAP participation among older US adults is associated with lower healthcare use and costs, better medication adherence, and no evidence of harm.

A landmark special issue of Plant and Soil shows that soil and plant microbiomes can be harnessed to help crops withstand drought, salinity, contaminants and disease.

Whole-genome sequencing of the soil bacterium Enterobacter ludwigii I42 reveals the genetic basis of its ability to unlock soil phosphorus and significantly boost maize seedling growth.

A first-year field trial in Labrador shows hardwood biochar and peat with limestone rapidly relieve the acidity and nutrient retention problems of newly converted boreal Podzolic soil, enabling substantial oat and pea forage production within a single growing season.

New research from Italy shows that compost amendments keep enhancing cobalt retention in Mediterranean soils for up to a decade after applications cease.

A field study shows that inoculating rice with a Penicillium fungus significantly reduces chromium, cadmium, lead, and antimony accumulation by reshaping rhizosphere bacterial communities and reprogramming root metabolic pathways.

Isaac Larsen, an associate professor in the College of Natural Sciences' Department of Earth, Geographic, and Climate Sciences, is a lead author of "Status of the World's Soil Resources 2026," a new report produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that draws on recent scientific literature and contributions from hundreds of experts around the world.

Researchers found that sterilized, crushed waste natural rubber latex gloves mixed into soil at ten percent by weight boosted plant biomass by 20 to 35 percent and enriched phosphorus, manganese, copper, and sulfur levels without altering soil pH.

SUNY Cobleskill Ag & Tech has received a $30,000 USDA-NIFA grant to build a prototype virtual reality agricultural engineering course aimed at bringing technical training to rural, place-bound farmers.

A nationwide survey of 213 soils finds that pH, carbon-nitrogen stocks, and threshold-dependent micronutrient availability, rather than microbial diversity, control how well legume-based farming systems deliver multiple soil functions across China's climatic zones.

A systematic review of 41 studies spanning 1970 to 2025 compiles India's first national map of soil biodiversity, revealing 205 faunal species, stark regional gaps and the toll of intensive farming.

A meta-analysis of 73 field studies on China's Huang-Huai-Hai Plain shows organic fertilizer substitution raises maize yields by 16.45 percent while leaving wheat unaffected, with outcomes shaped by soil texture and pH.

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.