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A plant enemy’s enemy

By Jill Richardson / April 3, 2013

When eaten by caterpillars, some plants can emit chemicals that signal the help of special wasps. Once called, a wasp lays its egg inside a caterpillar. Credit: Ted Turlings

Plants use chemicals to recruit help in fighting off pests

Posted in Agriculture, Chemistry, Plants | Tagged Ali Zakir, Amanuel Tamiru, Barack Obama, botany, caterpillars, corn, corn rootworms, cotton, crop protection, Desmodium, Egyptian cotton leafworm, entomology, fall armyworm, farming, feature, features, insect communications, insects, integrated pest management, John Pickett, Kenya, larvae, Marcel Dicke, Maurice W. Sabelis, mite, moths, Napier grass, nematodes, pesticides, pests, plant breeding, plant communications, plant protection, plant signaling, plants, predation, predators, priming, push-pull, Sarah Obama, stem borer, Ted Turlings, Thomas Degen, topstories, volatiles, wasp, Zeyaur Khan

Cool Jobs: Green Science

By Sharon Oosthoek / March 14, 2013

White spruce grow across northern North America, from Alaska to Labrador. As Arctic temperatures rise, spruce are spreading even farther north. Credit: Mark W. Skinner at USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

Scientists get at the root (and stem, leaf, flower, fruit and seed) of the relationship between plants and their environment

Posted in Agriculture, Plants, STEM Careers | Tagged air pollution, air pollution control, albedo, allelopathy, arabidopsis, benzene, Bill Wolverton, birch, botany, climate change, contaminants, cool jobs, ecology, feature, forests, formaldehyde, global warming, greenhouse effect, greenhouse effectPlants, herbicide, houseplants, Joseph Jez, juglone, Labrador, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, plant chemistry, plants, Pollination, pollinator, Quebec, rice, seeds, Serge Payette, sorghum, spruce, topstories, transpiration, tree line, trees, trichloroethylene, tundra, Université Laval, Washington University, weed killers, X-ray crystallography

Weed wars

By Roberta Kwok / December 7, 2011

culpepper

Farmers fight unwanted plants among crops

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged feature

Farms sprout in cities

By Jennifer Cutraro / October 8, 2008

Farming in the city is already happening on the small scale. The Science Barge in New York City, shown here, grows tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers and other crops in greenhouses. Energy comes from solar panels, windmills and a generator that runs on bio. Credit Enrico Sacchetti

The farms of the future may be where you would least expect to find them — in towering skyscrapers in some of the world’s largest cities

Posted in Agriculture

Flush-Free Fertilizer

By Emily Sohn / October 5, 2007

In Finland, researcher Surendra Pradhan shows off large cabbages that were grown in soil fertilized by human urine. Credit: J. Holopainen/Univ. of Kuopio

Scientists have found a new use for human urine—as a potent crop fertilizer.

Posted in Agriculture

Growing Healthier Tomato Plants

By Emily Sohn / July 9, 2004

How well tomatoes grow depends on how the plants are mulched and fertilized.

Posted in Agriculture

Protecting Cows—and People—from a Deadly Disease

By Sorcha McDonagh / January 12, 2004

Mad cow disease has appeared in the United States, but scientists say it can be contained easily.

Posted in Agriculture