Agriculture

URBANA, Ill. – Scientists are getting closer to finding the genes for maleness in waterhemp and Palmer amaranth, two of the most troublesome agricultural weeds in the U.S.

Finding the genes could enable new “genetic control” methods for the weeds, which, in many places, no longer respond to herbicides.

URBANA, Ill.  – Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa use fertilizer well below recommended rates, contributing to consistently low agricultural productivity. Farmers in Tanzania and Kenya, for example, apply just 13 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare, compared with 165 to 175 kilograms in India and Brazil. Low use directly affects cereal yields, which average 1.2 to 1.7 metric tons per hectare, compared to 4 to 4.5 metric tons in South America and Asia.

URBANA, Ill. – The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has awarded $1.12 million to support University of Illinois-led research to clean agricultural drainage water through saturated buffers and denitrifying bioreactors. The investment, part of NRCS’s Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) program, was matched by numerous stakeholder partners in Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota, for a total of nearly $2.25 million. 

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Carbon dioxide fuels photosynthesis, the process by which plants generate their food in the form of carbohydrates. The atmosphere’s carbon dioxide levels are rapidly increasing, but there is uncertainty about whether plants can turn these extra resources into higher yields while retaining nutritional quality. 

URBANA, Ill. -- The U.S. backs out of the Paris climate agreement even as carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels continue to rise. Through photosynthesis, plants are able to turn CO₂ into yield. Logic tells us that more CO₂ should boost crop production, but a new review from the University of Illinois shows that some crops, including corn, are adapted to a pre-industrial environment and cannot distribute their resources effectively to take advantage of extra CO₂.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Five years ago, the United Nations committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030. Since then, however, world hunger has continued to rise. Nearly 9 percent of our global population is now undernourished, according to a 2020 report from the FAO, and climate variability is a leading factor driving us off course.

URBANA, Ill. – Continuing its legacy of leadership in the area of sustainable agriculture, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois is pleased to announce a generous gift of aerial imagery from Aerial Agronomy, Inc. Two multispectral agricultural data sets, valued at $1.5 million, will be used in teaching and research, including efforts towards estimating soil health and carbon flux from agricultural land in the Midwest.

URBANA, Ill. -- An international research team has sequenced the full genome of an ornamental variety of miscanthus, a wild perennial grass emerging as a prime candidate for sustainable bioenergy crops.

The genome project — led by scientists at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Research Center — provides a road map for researchers exploring new avenues to maximize the plant’s productivity and decipher the genetic basis for its desirable traits.

URBANA, Ill. – A new $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) will support University of Illinois scientists and collaborators as they develop improved seed corn tailored to the needs of the rapidly growing organic industry.

URBANA, Ill. – Extrusion is the norm in the pet and aqua feed industries, yet it remains unusual for swine feed in the United States. But the technology can improve energy and protein digestibility in pigs, according to research from the University of Illinois.