This has increased greatly crop production. Such heavy fertilizer use has made China one of the biggest consumers of phosphate fertilizer.
and maintain the soil phosphate content at a level that is optimal for crop yields, Zhang says. This'build up and maintenance'strategy alone could reduce current levels of phosphate fertilizer use by more than 20,
Nature Newsindia's moratorium on genetically modified (GM) food crops is unlikely to be lifted after it emerged that key sections from a landmark report by six Indian science academies,
which recommended that the country resume planting of GM food crops, had been plagiarized from an article in favour of such crops.
The environment ministry this week rejected the academies'report. The anti-GM CROPS lobby has seized on the controversy,
Taking molecular snaps of ancient crops: Nature Newsarchaeologists interested in the genetics of ancient organisms have a new molecular tool at hand RNA.
Two teams of scientists have decoded RNA from ancient crops in the hope of understanding the subtle evolutionary changes that accompanied the process of plant domestication.
says that ancient maize transcriptomes could help scientists determine how domestication influenced the nutritional content of these early crops.
For example, farmers in developing countries could save water by using sprinklers on the surface of fields to irrigate crops,
Nature Newsscientists in Uganda will next week start field trials of a banana variety genetically engineered to resist a bacterial disease that has been decimating crops across Central africa.
which are important wild pollinators of fruit and vegetable crops. Several species have been domesticated and used for commercial pollination in tomato greenhouses.
'However, the moths released from the planes were different from those responsible for the caterpillars munching their way through the state's cotton crops.
and genetically modified cotton crops, engineered to produce a toxin deadly to pinkies, would put an end to farmers'costly struggle against the caterpillars.
genetically modified cotton crops had driven already down the population one million-fold, says Tabashnik. The crops produce a toxin that is made naturally by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis
called Bt toxin. To prevent the spread of Bt resistance, farmers are required to plant nearby'refuges'of conventional crops.
The idea behind the refuges is to keep a population of non-resistant moths close at hand as potential mates for any resistant moths that arise.
By 2009, a survey of 16,600 cotton bolls from conventional crops yielded only two pink bollworm larvae,
researchers have found that the Maya coped with tough environmental conditions by developing ingenious methods to grow crops in wetland areas.
Fossilized plant remains at these sites show that the Maya were growing crops such as avocados, grass species and maize.
which would kept the root systems of their crops above the waterlogged soil, while allowing access to the irrigation water.
Whether local farmers will be allowed to sow any crops next year is yet to be established. The Ajkai alumina plant resumed operations two weeks after the spill.
Nature Newsresearch Policy Events People Business Trend watch Research Crop catalogue A global search to gather the wild relatives of essential food crops such as wheat,
and the oomycete annually destroys more than US$6 billion worth of crops worldwide. The researchers identified the key genes by comparing the genetic make-up of the potato blight pathogen and several of its sister species. To do so,
and the loss of habitats from where important crops originated, there is a big risk that we will run out of options for natural genetic resistance,
and conventional crops and a public register for the location of GM plantings, was justified because the long-term consequences of GM technology are still unclear.
husbanding their bacterial'crops'much as some ant species farm fungus. As social amoebae, slime moulds are bizarre creatures that live as individual singled-celled organisms while feeding,
and defend their crops, the amoebae are relatively primitive farmers, with no active cultivation at the new site.
such as growing a wider variety of crops and reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers. See go. nature. com/bbkrbb for more.
rice and other crops, explains Bruno Dorin, an economist at CIRAD and one of the report's authors.
and other crops grown in the same year, the total yield is higher, he says.
farmers in the United states will have a new way to safeguard their crops from drought. Last week, Dupont subsidiary Pioneer hi-bred International, headquartered in Johnston, Iowa,
But not everybody is convinced that these crops will make a big difference. It's good news,
Within five years, we hope to have crops in Asia, B ¤nziger says.
Seven days: 31 december 6 january 2011: Nature Newsbusiness Business watch Research Policy Coming up Business Solar subsidy cuts Spain's government is slashing subsidies to its photovoltaics industry by around 30,
signatories are legally bound to pass on genetic information about the world's 64 most important food crops,
says that conserving global plant genetic diversity is the only way to develop crops that are adapted to changing climates and resistant to new diseases.
as a result of modern farming methods that focus on only a handful of crops, such as wheat and rice.
And he calls for more research on orphan crops, such as quinoa (Chenopodium), a grain-like crop originating in South america.
We need to invest in research in crops that feed the poor, he says.
Counting the carbon cost of peatland conversion: Nature Newsup to 6%of carbon-rich peat-swamp forests had been cleared in Peninsular Malaysia
Biofortified, or nutritionally enhanced, staple crops could thus greatly reduce the death and disease burden related to nutritional deficiencies,
These crops will not be used by farmers or consumers until they pass tests for biosafety in each country, says Gerard Barry, who coordinates the Golden Rice Network at the International Rice Research Institute in Los Ba  os
With a limited labour force but ample subsidized chemical fertilizers available in most rural areas, dumping nutrient-rich animal manure has become an easier and cheaper option than using it to fertilize crops.
seed and agricultural training to increase crop yields of existing farmland and help to meet the increasing demand for food.
And even if crop yields had to be doubled the cost would still be just $12 per tonne,
Climate change curbs crops: Nature Newsfarmers have produced less food during the past three decades than they would have done were climate change not happening, according to a study published today1.
National crop yields are still rising as a general trend. But the fact that they are lower than a theoretical maximum is important
The study also shows that temperature has had so far a much greater effect on crop yields than precipitation.
So it might be more important to breed heat tolerance into future generations of crops than to make them capable of surviving with less water.
Crop yields depend on many things from the vagaries of the market to the price of fertilizer and the availability of new technologies.
in February, the US Department of agriculture invested $60 million in three studies on the effects of climate change on crops and forests.
the 2010 climate-change programme awarded grants to researchers studying cereal crops such as maize (corn)
when locust swarms from the Sahel darkened the skies over Cairo and devastated crops across Africa.
and protect agricultural crops, according to a scientific assessment released on 14 june. Sponsored by the United nations Environment Programme and the World meteorological organization,
Crop production and species diversity in woodlands were among the few services that improved. Wheat yields doubled between the 1960s and 2010
With changing technologies, the department says that it lacks the authority to regulate newly created transgenic crops.
The technique is established well for many crops, and particle bombardment is less predictable, often yielding multiple, fragmented insertions of the new gene.
The scientists studied crops at a Tokyo research field, including cabbages and potatoes that were planted a few weeks after rains showered the field with radioisotopes from Fukushima.
The crops were harvested on 16 Â May and contained low levels of radiation around 9 Â becquerels per kilogram (Bq kg-1;
Nature Newskenya is expected to become the fourth African country to allow the commercial production of transgenic crops.
Without the regulations, projects can't move forward into unconfined trials where crops are released into the environment
Other crops undergoing confined field trials include virus-resistant sweet potatoes and drought-resistant maize, he says.
which allowed the commercial production of transgenic crops in principle. These regulations set out the details of how the law will be implemented,
in part because a drought has destroyed large swathes of local farmers'crops. Without the regulations, Kenya is unable to import the white variety of maize Kenyans like to eat as the majority of this is transgenic,
including transgenic crops, that will enable them to produce greater volumes for less money. But not everyone is in favour.
It has proved surprisingly economically stable compared with major grain crops such as rice, wheat and maize (corn:
The possibilities for improvement through marker-assisted breeding and genetic modification could make the potato a more viable alternative to grain crops,
says William Dar, director-general of the Inter  national Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid Tropics in Andhra Pradesh,
by encouraging researchers to tackle the genomic wilderness of emerging biofuel crops in a more systematic way.
With the plant summit, he hopes to bridge a sometimes acrimonious divide between researchers who specialize in crops and those who work with model systems such as Arabidopsis thaliana,
pinpointing when different crops were introduced. Theotokis Theodoulou, an archaeologist at the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities in Athens and a co-author on the paper,
Nodari, a former member of CTNBIO who has questioned long transgenic crops, says that the commission improperly granted EMBRAPA's request for confidentiality regarding key aspects of the genetic engineering.
Tanzania and South africa to apply the same technology to local crops, including cassava. EMBRAPA is already looking to develop other virus-resistant beans,
such as a flood at a power plant or the loss of crops due to pests. Jim Hall, director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, UK,
laying the groundwork for a biofuel that doesn't sacrifice food crops. Yasuo Yoshikuni and his colleagues at the Bio Architecture Lab in Berkeley, California, engineered the bacterium Escherichia coli
Many researchers are exploring ways to produce ethanol without using food crops such as sugar cane or maize (corn),
such measures could boost global crop production by 1-4%.The United nations Environment Programme explored the potential gains in a detailed assessmentlast June (see go. nature. com/4wcwxf).
whether to introduce crop-specific indirect land-use change (ILUC) factors that recognize the extra emissions that plant feedstocks cause by displacing food crops,
which is the world's second-largest adopter of such crops, grew 30.3 million hectares of GM soya, maize (corn) and cotton last year, a 19%increase on 2010.
Argentina which plants similar crops and is the third-largest adopter crept up 3%to 23.7 million hectares.
Biofuels are made from crops that are planted often on former forest or marsh land, and carbon-offset projects can result in the eviction of inhabitants of wooded areas that are bought up in exchange for carbon credits.
Organic farming is rarely enoughmaxim. photoshelter. com/Alamystrawberries are among the few crops that grow almost as well on organic farms as in conventional agriculture."
allowing them to compare crop yields per unit area. Many previous studies that have showed large yields for organic farming ignore the size of the area planted which is often bigger than in conventional farming.
Crop yields from organic farming are as much as 34%lower than those from comparable conventional farming practices,
Organic agriculture performs particularly poorly for vegetables and some cereal crops such as wheat, which make up the lion s share of the food consumed around the world.
while the crops are growing, delivering key nutrients such as nitrogen when the crops need it most.
Organic approaches such as laying crop residue on the soil surface, build up nutrients over a longer period of time."
which have yields only 3%lower than in conventional farming and oilseed crops such as soybean,
Organic farmers can boost yields of less-productive crops through land-management practices, such as planting them in rotation with leguminous crops that fix nitrogen into the soil,
says Seufert.""There is still a big yield difference but the study does suggest organic systems have the potential to produce comparable yields,
but in a very limited number of crops, says Sonja Vermeulen, director of research for the climate change and agricultural Copenhagen-based programme led by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
as well as high-yield crops that still have a good flavour.""It s really all about making a better tomato,
it now flourishes unchecked alongside crops such as cotton and soya bean that are modified genetically to be glyphosate tolerant.
since the widespread introduction of Roundup Ready and similar crops over the past decade allowed farmers to apply glyphosate more liberally.
and engineer crops to withstand it. This has produced a wave of genetically modified crops under review by the USDA
How much of an increase depends on how widely the multitolerant crops are planted and how frequently the herbicide combinations are used.
has shown that planting a cover crop of rye blocks sunlight and reduces the number of pigweed seeds that germinate by 75%.
and the stalks, leaves and stems of food crops. It is seen as a more sustainable biofuel
improving yields and profits of crops, fish and livestock; improving sustainability and environmental integrity, and climate change adaptation and mitigation;
after the United states. Last year, it farmed 30.3 million hectares of the crops, mostly soya beans,
after it became clear that about three-quarters of the soya crops produced in the southern state of Rio grande do Sul were already being grown from Roundup Ready seeds that had been smuggled in from Argentina.
farmers can spray they fields with the chemical to control weeds without risking damage to their crops.
the company charges the farmers responsible for the crops some 3%of their sales. In 2009, a consortium of farming syndicates from Rio grande do mounted Sul a legal challenge to the levy,
so any change in the US supply of these crops will affect prices worldwide. The price of maize last week hit a record US$8. 16 per bushel ($321 per tonne
Many scientists are trying to unravel the complex crop genetics that allows these crops to tolerate environmental extremes,
S. Mccall/Getty Imagesus crops wilt in drought The most extensive US drought in more than half a century has seen prices for maize (corn)
How can you grow crops in incredibly arid conditions? Can you increase salt tolerance of crops such as rice,
so that they can tolerate irrigation with sea water? It would be really presumptuous of me to say,
such as the organic research initiative and specialty crops research initiative. Â I am also hearing a good bit of conversation about the Farm bill becoming more prescriptive about areas NIFA should focus on, reporting requirements
which they define as the difference between attainable and actual yields of food crops. Assembling the most comprehensive global data set of crop yields
and fertilizer use yet produced, the study authors show that yield increases of 45-70%are possible for most crops through improved nutrient management
and increased use of irrigation.""Our study can help diagnose successful interventions and prioritize our efforts to close yield gaps at the regional and global scale,
or crops need additional inputs can be extremely useful. To tease out trends in global crop yields on a regional scale,
the authors took a statistical approach combining existing national and sub-national data for both crop yield and fertilizer input.
and then calculated attainable yield and the factors contributing to yield gaps for 17 major crops,
"The authors did a tremendous job estimating nutrient applications for so many different crops, but I worry that using statistics of past performance as the basis to explore the future is dangerous
it s just very difficult to find a single soil parameter that influences global crop yields,
because many farmers there could not grow crops and relied on livestock for food and income.
The labels would not reflect how the crops have been modified, or the quantity of GM ingredients in a food.
and could discourage research to develop drought-tolerant crops and more nutritious foods. Studies by the US National Academies1 and Britain s Royal Society of Medicine2 found no evidence that biotech crops are unsafe to eat.
Pro-GM plant scientists also point out that the crops can benefit the environment by enabling farmers to use less-toxic herbicides
Seed companies can counter this by engineering new crops that are resistant to additional herbicides such as a new soya bean developed by Dow Agrosciences of Indianapolis,
India s GM caution A cross-party panel of politicians in India has urged the government to halt all open-field trials of transgenic crops until it develops a better monitoring and oversight system.
They looked at factors such as variations in soil quality and fertilizer application during crop production, and different efficiencies in fuel production.
over genetically engineered crops. Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri, argued that Dupont s agriculture subsidiary Pioneer hi-bred (now Dupont Pioneer) in Johnston,
Iowa, infringed a Monsanto patent on Roundup Ready crops, which are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate.
including working to develop transgenic crops. They also point out some errors by critics, such as claims that graphs in the paper showing rat survival over time do not include data for the controls.
Maize cells produce enzyme-replacement druggrowing crops is simpler and cheaper than culturing mammalian cells,
Cereal crops can be grown using established methods, and seeds are ideal for long-term protein storage.
the transgenic crops should be grown in contained greenhouses to prevent them from escaping into the environment.
farmers across the globe will probably have to switch to cultivating more climate-hardy crops and farming practices."
This is a different take from the usual focus on crop yields and emissions, says Campbell. In the second report2, Philip Thornton, an agricultural scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute, headquartered in Nairobi,
For some crops, improvements to heat resistance through conventional and transgenic breeding, for example, will help farmers to adapt.
and he suggests that farmers consider growing crops, such as bananas, that do better in warmer climates.
and"identify which crops and which regions to focus investment on. He calls on governments meeting next month at the climate-change conference in Doha
India GM concerns Prospects for growing genetically modified (GM) food crops in India receded further
sheep and crops between 2008 and 2012, says Ning Li, director of the State Key Laboratories for Agrobiotechnology in Beijing.
Biofuels are falling from grace around the world as critics charge that devoting millions of hectares of agricultural land to fuel crops is driving up food prices
and the challenges farmers in tropical countries face from insects and fungi that infect their crops,
The disease has attacked already coffee crops in South and Central america. See go. nature. com/epwshp and page 587 for more.
and more than 90%of coffee crops were wiped out in those regions. Faced with an economic catastrophe
The reports conclude that these chemicals should be used only on crops that are not attractive to honey bees,
despite EU legislation that requires all member states to permit cultivation of approved crops. European courts have ruled against bans in two countries.
with countries claiming that there is new information on harm caused by the crops that is yet to be evaluated.
but that could be cut by up to two-thirds without affecting crop yields. Â Â Furthermore, says Sutton,
"80%of the nitrogen in crops grown globally goes to feed livestock, says Sutton. Higher consumption of meat and diary products, especially in developed countries, has increased substantially global nitrogen pollution."
while reducing pollution and improving crop production. To make a real difference, he adds, "governments should join forces to better manage the global nitrogen cycle
when it patented a method for engineering transgenic crops to produce sterile seed, forcing farmers to buy new seed for each planting.
Organic farmers want ways to keep genetically engineered crops from contaminating their fields, and food safety groups are concerned about contamination of food crops with products from a new generation of crops engineered to produce chemicals or pharmaceuticals.
By ensuring that genetically modified plants survive for only one planting""that technology would have alleviated a lot of environmental concerns,
100 Â tonnes of crops and trees killed by the gas, leaving the scene of the accident even more barren than before."
The cold Svalbard seed vault in Norway performs the same function for crops species that,
planting crops under fertilizer trees, such as Faidherbia albida, which provide nutrients to the soil below.
imidacloprid and thiamethoxam should not be used where they might end up in crops that attract bees, such as oilseed rape and maize.
The European commission then proposed a two-year ban on the use of these chemicals in such crops.
Conducted by an agency within the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs (DEFRA), it exposed 20 Â bumblebee colonies at three sites to crops grown from untreated,
He points to a 2012 study7 that found neonicotinoids in dandelions growing near treated crops,
so a chemical that targets the gene could help to keep pests away from economically important crops."
Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman argued that Monsanto s patents did not apply to seeds he purchased from a grain elevator (storage tower) that contained a mixture of surplus crops,
saying that US patent law"provides no haven for propagating crops from such seeds. See go. nature. com/uil764 for more.
it could save trees that might otherwise be cleared for crops or for grazing. Studies show that the types of omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish help to protect against heart disease, arthritis, Alzheimer s disease and even depression.
Bussmann's work to develop crops from Plukenetia species seems to go beyond the traditional role of a scientist.
the European commission has announced that a two-year ban on the use of three common pesticides on crops will begin on 1 december.
If you apply these chemicals once a year on crops, they will accumulate. Goulson's review also cites earlier studies suggesting that grain-eating birds such as partridges may be dying after eating as few as five seeds treated with neonicotinoids.
The insecticide is applied most often as a seed dressing to crops such as maize and soya beans.
However, crop yields have grown even faster than emissions, a sign that Brazilian farmers and ranchers are producing more food on less land,
Crops must first be deemed safe by the European Food safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma, Italy. The European commission must then produce a draft decision within three months,
The EFSA has deemed eight crops as safe some as long ago as 2005. But political disquiet over the cultivation of GM CROPS, including bans in some EU countries,
Four crops in limbo three varieties of maize (corn) and one of soya bean are Monsanto products.
a widespread EU practice that is less controversial than cultivating the crops in European fields. MON810
Weeds warrant urgent conservationfaced with climate change, plant breeders are increasingly turning to the genomes of the wild, weedy relatives of crops for traits such as drought tolerance and disease resistance.
Crop wild relatives are one of the most valuable genetic resources to improve crops, Â but they are threatened because of habitat loss as well as gene flow from domesticated plants through cross-pollination,
And it identified some crops, such as sorghum and bananas, that have few, if any, relatives secured in collections.
researchers at the CIAT first identified all known wild relatives of 29 globally important crops.
The team plans to analyse the wild relatives of a further 60 crop species incorporating essentially all the major crops by the end of the year.
which illustrate where wild relatives of these 29 crops are need in greatest of collecting to create partnerships with conservation organizations in countries such as Portugal and Italy,
12 18 july 2013biofuels brake Biofuels made from food crops are on course to be curbed in Europe after an 11 Â July vote by the environment committee in the European parliament.
but Fraley argues that those who illegally enter fields to demolish crops could also break into experimental plots to collect seed.
She has found transgenic crops in stranger places. In 2009, for instance, she found transgenic sugar-beet seedlings in a bag of soil sold to gardeners."
EU debates U-turn on biofuels policythe European union (EU) has spent the past 10 years nurturing a  15-billion (US$20-billion) industry that makes transport fuel from food crops such as soya beans
so far, most of that fuel has come from food crops, helping to generate a thriving bio  fuels industry based mainly on biodiesel.
when agricultural land is used to plant biofuel crops, fresh land may be ploughed up to accommodate the existing crops that have been edged out.
Ultimately, that may drive clearing of forests, peatlands and wetlands rich in sequestered carbon causing large emissions of carbon dioxide."
The numbers are different for different crops (see Carbon conundrum. But overall, when land-use effects are taken into account,
the committee proposed gradually increasing mandates for use of advanced biofuels not made from food crops."
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