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Biologicals vs. biostimulants: Illinois study clarifies crop input confusion

Every time Fred Below and Connor Sible meet with Illinois farmers, they get the same question. “What’s the story with these biologicals? Do they work?” 

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Crucial mutant corn stocks threatened under 2026 USDA budget

When most growers plant corn, they expect perfect, uniform rows and plump and pearly yellow kernels lining the cob. But a group of USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists intentionally plant the misfits — some gnarled and speckled, others sprouting tassels where ears should be — to perpetuate the wide array of genetic variation in the Midwest’s most economically important crop. 

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New land grant research detects dicamba damage from the sky

Drones can now detect subtle soybean canopy damage from dicamba at one ten-thousandth of the herbicide’s label rate — simulating vapor drift — eight days after application.

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Corn after soy: New study quantifies rotation benefits and trade-offs

While the majority of Midwestern farmers rotate corn and soybeans, commodity prices and corn yield advantages compel some to plant corn year after year.

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Review: Heat-resilient crops are within reach — given enough time and money

Laboratory and field experiments have repeatedly shown that modifying the process of photosynthesis or the physical characteristics of plants can make crops more resilient to hotter temperatures. Scientists can now alter the abundance or orientation of leaves, change leaf chemistry to improve heat tolerance and adjust key steps in the process of photosynthesis to overcome bottlenecks, researchers report in a new review in the journal Science.

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Safeguarding soybeans: Preserving genetic diversity for a resilient future

Inside a large walk-in refrigerator on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, thousands of envelopes hold the fate of global food security, not to mention a significant portion of the world’s economy.

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Report: ‘Future-proofing’ crops will require urgent, consistent effort

In a review in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Stephen Long, a professor of crop sciences and of plant biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, describes research efforts to “future-proof” the crops that are essential to feeding a hungry world in a changing climate.

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