Page 3 - Genetics Section News Today

A breakthrough technology uses nanoscale sensors and fiber optics to measure water status just inside a leafs surface, providing a tool to greatly advance our understanding of basic plant biology, and opening the door for breeding more drought-resistant crops.

Water regulation in leaves is vital to a plant's health, affecting its growth and yield, disease susceptibility and drought resistance. A breakthrough...

May 27, 2021 An anonymous gift of $1.5 million to support Cornell AgriTech research will improve grapevine health, quality, yields and profitability in New York state’s wine and grape industry through the creation of an endowed graduate student research fellowship program. The wine industry in New York state – from grape growing to bottle sales – generates $6.65 billion annually, according to the most recent report from the New York Wine and Grape Foundation. In total, 35,000  acres of N...

Date Time Early breeding reduced harmful mutations in sorghum When humans first domesticated maize some 9,000 years ago, those early breeding efforts led to an increase in harmful mutations to the crop’s genome compared to their wild relatives, which more recent modern breeding has helped to correct. Nadia Shakoor/Provided The image shows variation in flower head architecture of the different sorghum races, including (from left to right) bicolor, guinea, caudatum, kafir and durra. A n...

High hopes for New York-developed malting barley EMPIRE MALTING BARLEY: Malting barley variety trials are seen, including varieties developed by the lab of Mark Sorrells, at one of the university’s test plots in Batavia, N.Y. Sorrells is one of the lead researchers for CU-31. CU-31, a spring malting barley, was developed in four years and will be grown for commercial seed in 2021. Francis Domoy has grown what’s considered to be New York’s first climate-adapted grain. But it’s not...