Research

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —  University of Illinois Provost Andreas C. Cangellaris held the investiture of Stephen P. Long as the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair Professor of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences on Jan. 27 at the Spurlock Museum. 

To encourage and support ACES undergraduate students to pursue work related to food and nutritional security in low and middle income countries, the ACES Office of International Programs has launched the Global Food Security Scholars internship program.

Five talented and motivated ACES undergraduate students have been selected to receive salary support for an approved on-campus internship during spring semester 2020. Selected scholars will also receive up to $1500 to support the costs of participating in an international travel experience that is associated with the internship.

URBANA, Ill. – In the battle against herbicide-resistant weeds, farmers are increasingly eager to add non-chemical control methods to their management toolbox. Impact mills, which destroy weed seeds picked up by a combine, have been shown to kill 70-99% of weed seeds in soybeans, wheat, and other small-statured cropping systems.

A new research collaboration will shed new light on soil samples from the University of Illinois’ Morrow Plots, the oldest agricultural research field in the United States. The collaboration between the Biomedical Imaging Center at the Beckman Institute and the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences aims to develop new methods and models to study how different soil processes affect soil and plant health. Read more.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $3.3 million grant to a multidisciplinary research team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop a precise system for measuring greenhouse gas emissions from commercial bioenergy crops grown in central Illinois.

URBANA, Ill. – Many animal feeds contain crystalline amino acids, nitrogen-based building blocks for protein synthesis. Often, crystalline amino acids are manufactured by genetically engineered bacteria, which do not trigger any safety concerns but are capable of producing mass quantities of the protein precursors.

URBANA, Ill. – Researchers from the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and the Illinois Natural History Survey have published their 2019 field research results related to crop pests and diseases in Illinois.

URBANA, Ill. – For corn growers, the decision of when and how much nitrogen fertilizer to apply is a perennial challenge. Scientists at the University of Illinois have shown that nanosatellites known as CubeSats can detect nitrogen stress early in the season, potentially giving farmers a chance to plan in-season nitrogen fertilizer applications and alleviate nutrient stress for crops.

As a result of intersecting research interests in women’s health, a new collaboration was forged between Zeynep Madak-Erdogan (GSP/ONC-PM), Assistant Professor in Food Science and Human Nutrition, and Justina Zurauskiene (ONC-PM), Birmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement and Education (BRIDGE) fellow and fellow at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences in Birmingham, England.

URBANA, Ill. – Like most plants, soybeans pair up with soil fungi in a symbiotic mycorrhizal relationship. In exchange for a bit of sugar, the fungus acts as an extension of the root system to pull in more phosphorus, nitrogen, micronutrients, and water than the plant could on its own.