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.

Urbana, Ill. —  The new Illinois Regenerative Agriculture Initiative (IRAI) is inviting interested farmers, researchers, nonprofit groups, and others with a stake in resilient agriculture and food production to join its second public meeting on April 9.

URBANA, Ill. – Feeding a growing global population is one of the most urgent challenges of our time. Farmers and scientists are advancing innovative solutions on many fronts, from breeding to production management to precision agriculture, with technology as a common thread.

Lurking in more than 99% of soybean fields across the Midwest is a worm capable of feeding on and damaging entire crops. Millions of dollars have been spent trying to combat these destructive pests through the development of resistant soybean plants, but after decades of successful use, those solutions have begun to fail. Once again, soybean production is in trouble, and researchers are being forced back to the drawing board, but this time they are looking to attack the nematode from within.

URBANA, Ill. – From flooded spring fields to summer hailstorms and drought, farmers are well aware the weather is changing. It often means spring planting can’t happen on time or has to happen twice to make up for catastrophic losses of young seedlings.

URBANA, Ill. – With cities around the globe locking down yet again amid soaring COVID-19 numbers, could seasonality be partially to blame? New research from the University of Illinois says yes.

In a paper published in Evolutionary Bioinformatics, Illinois researchers show COVID-19 cases and mortality rates, among other epidemiological metrics, are significantly correlated with temperature and latitude across 221 countries.

URBANA, Ill. – Large perennial grasses like miscanthus are a primary target for use as bioenergy crops because of their sustainability advantages, but they take several years to establish and aren’t ideal for crop rotation. Maize and other annual crops are easier to manage with traditional farming, but they are tougher on the environment.

Energy sorghum, a hefty annual plant with the ecological benefits of a perennial, may combine the best of both crops.

New mutations to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 are emerging, including a more-infectious variant first found in the United Kingdom, even as vaccines containing bits of viral genetic material are beginning distribution. Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, a professor in the Department of Crop Sciences and a member of the Carl R.

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.