Latest Plant reproduction Stories
New research reveals Artemisia tridentata seeds can form a persistent seed bank, ensuring its survival in an invasive, fire-prone system Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is a key foundational species in an ecosystem that is threatened by invasion of cheatgrass and the subsequent increase in fire frequency. Critical to the conservation, reestablishment, and restoration of the sagebrush steppe ecosystem (which comprises 63 million hectares of the Great Basin of North America) is...
While Washington winemakers grow most of their grapes on their natural rootstock, the coveted quality of their crop–and wines–is unlikely to change if they join the rest of the world and start grafting their varieties to more disease- and pest-resistant roots. That day will probably come, say WSU experts, but growers have little to fear. Yet the spectre of a vine-destroying invasion has lurked in the shadows of Washington vineyards for years. What if, wine industry professionals have...
A new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B has found that human noise like traffic can have ripple effects on plants. Lead author Clinton Francis of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in Durham, North Carolina, said the consequences of noise could last for decades, even after the source of the noise goes away. Previous studies found that some animals increase in numbers near noisy sites, while others decline, but the results of the new study found...
A new Wellesley College study shows that a queen bee’s promiscuity benefits the hive. Dr. Heather Mattila studied the lives of bee colonies and discovered that the more genetically diverse the worker bee, the healthier they are. These bees become so genetically diverse when the queen bee mates with multiple bees. Research in bees has been growing in recent years in order to better understand and protect them. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the honey bee population has...
A new study out of Wellesley College sheds light on the link between genetic diversity and healthier bee colonies—by revealing the makeup of the microscopic life found inside the guts, on the bodies, and in the food of these insects. For the first time, scientists discovered that genetically diverse populations of worker bees, a result of the highly promiscuous mating behavior of queens, benefited from diverse symbiotic microbial communities, reduced loads of bacteria from pathogenic...
Latest Example of Global Committment to Bee Care and Sustainable Agriculture Research Triangle Park, NC (PRWEB) March 02, 2012 Bayer CropScience has launched a new bee health component of its U.S. Website, highlighting the important role bees play in agriculture and underscoring Bayer’s ongoing commitment to ensuring honey bee health. Visitors to the website can find out more about the important role bees and pollination play in agriculture, meet Bayer’s resident bee expert, learn how...
DES MOINES, Iowa and ADELAIDE, Australia, Feb. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- DuPont and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) today announced they have expanded their long-standing research collaboration to increase research scale on improving the overall productivity of wheat, as well as other crops. The expanded program brings a new focus on advanced cereal breeding through molecular markers, discovery research for agronomic traits and hybrid seed production...
According to a recent report in the New York Times, Russian scientists have successfully generating a living plant (Silene stenophylla) from the fruit of a species that went extinct in the last ice age some 32,000 years ago. The paper reported Monday that the plant’s fruit was apparently stowed away by an arctic ground squirrel in the wastelands of northeastern Siberia. Hidden beneath the permafrost of the frozen tundra for some 32 millennia, Russian researches recovered the almost...
FIVE POINTS, Calif., Feb. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- S&W Seed Company (NASDAQ: SANW), a leader in the development of non-dormant alfalfa seed varieties, today announced that it has developed its initial "dormant" alfalfa seed variety. The seed variety, designed to succeed in high altitude and cooler climates, has been certified by the California Crop Improvement Association (CCIA). The newly-certified variety, SW4328, marks the company's first, proprietary variety specifically...
Bumblebees can use cues from their rivals the honeybees to learn where the best food resources are, according to new research from Queen Mary, University of London. Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, the team from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences explain how they trained a colony of bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) to use cues provided by a different species, the honeybee (Apis mellifera), as well as cues provided by fellow bumblebees to locate food resources on...
Latest Plant reproduction Reference Libraries
Seed drilling is a method used by farmers in order to have a more unified, crop-yielding season. The first known use of seed drilling was in 1500 BC by the Sumerian. At this time, they were using a single tube. Later, in the 2nd Century BC, the Chinese developed a multi-tube iron drill. This facilitated in a larger crop planting allowing them to feed their large population. The first recorded patent of a sowing machine was in 1566 by the Venetian Senate, attributing Camillo Torello. In the...
Seed saving is the preserving of seeds from mature vegetables, herbs, and flowers used in subsequent years along with bulbs and tubers. Home gardeners have saved seeds for generations and the practice is now becoming common with organic farmers as well as permaculturists. Growers will clone plants so as not to produce seeds keeping the plant “true to type” to the parent plant. True to type refers to the characteristics of the parent plant such as large fruit/blooms. Plants...
Apiology is the scientific study of honey bees, a subdiscipline of melittology (the study of all bees), which is a subdiscipline of entomology. Melittology comprises of more than 17,000 species other than the honey bee. Apiology includes apicology, which is the study of honey bee ecology. Honey bees are often chosen as a study group to answer questions on the evolution of social systems. People who study honey bees are called apiologists. There have been a number of notable apiologists...
The Souimanga Sunbird (Cinnyris sovimanga), is a small passerine bird of the sunbird family, Nectariniidae. It is native to the islands of the western Indian Ocean where it occurs on Madagascar, the Aldabra Group and the Glorioso Islands. The Souimanga Sunbird can be found in a variety of habitats from mountain forests to mangroves and scrubland as well as in parks, gardens and other human-modified ecosystems. Souimanga Sunbirds are one of the most common small land birds across much of their...
The Olive-backed Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis), also known as the Yellow-bellied Sunbird, is an Asian sunbird. The Olive-backed Sunbird is common across southern China to the Philippines and Malaysia down to northeast Australia. Originally from mangrove habitat, the Olive-backed sunbird has adapted well to humans, and is now common even in fairly densely populated areas, even forming their nests in human dwellings. They are small songbirds, at most 4.75 inches long. The underparts of both...
