CPSC

URBANA, Ill. – How do you like your rice? Sticky, fluffy, brown, or white? These qualities, in addition to grain length, width, appearance, and other traits, are hugely important predictors of rice sales and consumption worldwide. And region matters. Rice preferences in Latin America, for example, are very different from those in West Africa, Japan, India, and elsewhere.

URBANA, Ill. -- Millions of people in Asia are dependent on rice as a food source. Believed to have been domesticated as early as 6000 BCE, rice is an important source of calories globally. In a new study from the RIPE project, researchers compared domesticated rice to its wild counterparts to understand the differences in their photosynthetic capabilities. The results can help improve future rice productivity.

URBANA, Ill. – Every one of Stacy Zuber’s career goals centered on science. That doesn’t mean she took a direct path.

“In middle school, I was certain I wanted to be a veterinarian. I learned quickly that I didn’t like the sight of blood, so I tried biochemistry,” she says. “If had done an internship instead of working on the family farm during the summer, I would have seen what was really out there and made up my mind earlier.”

URBANA, Ill. – New research from the University of Illinois shows sweet corn, when planted at high densities, has steadily increased in yield since the 1930s. The historical view underscores the importance of planting modern density-tolerant hybrids at their optimal densities, and suggests an opportunity to improve density tolerance even more.

URBANA, Ill. – Cementing waterhemp’s reputation as a hard-to-kill weed in corn and soybean production systems, University of Illinois researchers have now documented the weed deviating from standard detoxification strategies to resist an herbicide that has never been commercialized.

URBANA, Ill. – Machine learning can pinpoint genes of importance that help crops grow with less fertilizer, according to a new study published in Nature Communications.

URBANA, Ill. – Cover crops are widely seen as one of the most promising conservation practices, improving soil health while also removing carbon from the atmosphere. But while the number of Midwestern farmers planting cover crops has increased markedly in recent years, 2017 USDA Census data show only about 5% have adopted the conservation practice. The reluctance of the other 95% may be due, in part, to a perception that cover crops require more effort and may also negatively affect summer cash crop yield.

URBANA, Ill. – By the end of the century, scientists expect climate change to reduce corn yield significantly, with some estimating losses up to 28%. But those calculations are missing a key factor that could drag corn yields down even further: weeds.

Wetter springs and hotter, drier summers, already becoming the norm in the Corn Belt, put stress on corn during key reproductive stages, including silking and grain fill. But those same weather conditions can benefit the scrappy weeds that thrive in tough environments.

URBANA, Ill. – Seven new faculty members joined the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois in the past year. Their expertise will add to the existing strengths in several academic departments and units, as well as University of Illinois Extension, a key part of the college.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —  Plants use sunlight to generate their food through photosynthesis. When the sun rises each morning, plants must prepare themselves to receive nutrients from the sunlight, which takes time. Decreasing the prep time in plants could hold the key to improving yields in many crop varieties.