A study conducted by scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) reveals that the Afghan wheat landrace KU3067 has resistance to leaf rust and stripe rust, a research finding that can be used in the development of disease-resistant wheat varieties. Rust pathogens are fungal pathogens found everywhere and pose a serious threat to wheat production. The preferred strategy to combat these diseases is to breed wheat varieties with genetic resistance.

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, reported in Transgenic Research the results of the confined field trials of transgenic poplars with stress tolerance gene from Arabidopsis. Drought is abiotic stress that affects plant growth and productivity. Developing trees with enhanced tolerance to drought can potentially expand plantation areas and promote sustainable development.

Pennsylvania State University molecular plant geneticists conducted the first-ever investigation on epigenetic reprogramming code and the reprogramming effects, which are vital for breeding crops that can withstand extreme weather caused by climate change. When plants sense environmental triggers such as drought or extreme weather, they naturally reprogram their genetic material for survival. To breed more resilient crops, the researchers stress that the chemical code that turns on those changes can be deciphered and duplicated

Guatemala and Honduras lie in the heart of the Dry Corridor—a dry strip of land running throughout Central America that is particularly exposed to climate change. As well as economic and geographic ties, the two countries also share challenges—including inequality, malnutrition and violence—prompting many to migrate north to the United States. But change is unfolding. Rural communities are tackling these challenges, with passion, hope, commitment, as well as international support.

Recently, the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi (ISABU) released eleven new and improved rice varieties that are resilient to climate change, disease-tolerant, high yielding with great nutritional value, and with good grain quality. These rice varieties were released in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute-Burundi under World Bank’s variety development program through the Great Lakes Regional Integrated Agriculture Development Project (Projet Régional de Développement Agricole Intégré dans les Grands Lacs or PRDAIGL).

The Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has launched a major initiative to scale sustainable production and consumption of biofortified staple crops, to help address persistently high rates of malnutrition in this central African country of 93 million people. The initiative is part of the World Bank-funded Multisectoral Nutrition and Health Project (French acronym PMNS) to increase the range and scope of interventions aimed in particular at children ages 0-23 months, and women of reproductive age.

The African Development Bank is set to release an additional $27.41 million to implement Phase II of its flagship agricultural initiative, “Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation” (TAAT). The goal is to increase farming households’ productivity and incomes by giving them access to climate-resilient technologies in 36 low-income African countries by 2025. The decision to make this new disbursement was taken in Abidjan by the Bank Group’s Board of Directors on Friday, 15 July 2022.

Modeling and inference are central to most areas of science and especially to evolving and complex systems. Critically, the information we have is often uncertain and insufficient, resulting in an underdetermined inference problem; multiple inferences, models, and theories are consistent with available information. Information theory (in particular, the maximum information entropy formalism) provides a way to deal with such complexity.

Researchers from China National Rice Research Institute conducted a study to assess the role of OsPPR9 in chloroplast RNA editing in rice. Their findings are published in the Journal of Integrative Agriculture. Photosynthesis happens particularly in chloroplasts, which are developed through the regulation of proteins encoded by nuclear genes. Among these proteins, the pentapeptide repeat (PPR) proteins are involved in organelle RNA editing

Plant Science journal reported a long noncoding RNA that improves cold stress tolerance in Arabidopsis. Cold stress is one of the major environmental factors that impact global crop yield and production. Several long noncoding RNAs have been known to be involved in plant response to cold stress, but their molecular biological role is still to be explored.