URBANA, Ill. – Ever thought about buying or building a bat box to help bats? Think carefully about the design and where you put it, University of Illinois researchers say.

Here’s why: Bats and their pups can overheat and die in poorly designed or placed bat boxes, and in a warming climate, it could happen more often.

URBANA, Ill.– Safety awareness is critical for operators of agricultural equipment, and a core component of training for applicator technicians. A new University of Illinois project aims to develop virtual reality (VR) simulation materials for an immersive learning experience. 

URBANA, Ill. – Pumpkin growers dread the tiny tan scabs that form on their fruit, each lesion a telltale sign of bacterial spot disease. The specks don’t just mar the fruit’s flesh, they provide entry points for rot-inducing fungus and other pathogens that can destroy pumpkins and other cucurbits from the inside out. Either way, farmers pay the price, with marketable yields reduced by as much as 90%.

URBANA, Ill. – Land managers know one of the best ways to prevent forest fires is to set fires. Periodic controlled or prescribed burns can reduce the amount of flammable materials lying about on a forest floor, so when wildfires do start, they stay small.

Prescribed fires do more than that, though. New University of Illinois research shows frequent fires can help keep invasive plants in check by reducing nitrogen availability in soils.

URBANA, Ill.  – Each year, more than 20 agricultural workers in the U.S. die in grain bin accidents, and the number of fatalities is increasing. Stand Up 4 Grain Safety Week is an annual event that promotes awareness, education, and training on grain bin safety.

URBANA, Ill. ­– Opioid use has dramatically increased in the 21^st century, especially among young adults. A new study from the University of Illinois provides insights on usage patterns among Illinois high school students to help inform prevention and treatment strategies.

URBANA, Ill. ­– For a decade, agricultural professionals in Illinois and beyond have had a trusted online source for daily analysis and information. farmdocDAILY, part of the University of Illinois farmdoc project, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary on March 17.

And to mark this occasion, the farmdoc team will be releasing its list of the all-time top 20 articles.

URBANA, Ill. – Corn didn’t start out as the powerhouse crop it is today. No, for most of the thousands of years it was undergoing domestication and improvement, corn grew humbly within the limits of what the environment and smallholder farmers could provide.

URBANA, Ill. -- Agricultural scientists who study climate change often focus on how increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will affect crop yields. But rising temperatures are likely to complicate the picture, researchers report in a new review of the topic.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The chronic stress of living in neighborhoods with high rates of violence and poverty alters gene activity in immune cells, according to a new study of low-income single Black mothers on the South Side of Chicago.