AgriTech Review

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.

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 […]