Plant Science
Coffee is one of Brazil’s biggest crops. Brazil’s favorable climate helps coffee beans ripen and be ready for picking during a concentrated period of weeks. This makes mechanical harvesting an economically reasonable choice.
A tiny pest can cause huge losses to soybean farmers.
Several top soybean producing states in the U.S. are in the Upper Midwest. In these states, an insect–the soybean aphid–is a damaging pest. Each year, soybean aphids cause billions of dollars in crop losses.
A heat wave sweeps through a city and people swelter, running indoors to find air conditioning. But crops out in a field aren’t so lucky. For them, there is no escape.
Have you thanked a crop breeder today? Public-sector plant breeders (for example, at public universities) have developed crops for better productivity. As a result, more food is available to feed a growing population.
Soybean is rich in protein, which is great for the humans and animals eating it. But this high protein content comes at a cost.
Researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) are giving an ancient grain a new life: this barley is naked, but not in an indecent way.
Meet alfalfa, a perennial legume used mainly as high-quality feed for dairy cattle. Alfalfa is also used as feed for beef cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. It’s high in protein (16-20% crude protein). It contains a lot of calcium and other minerals and vitamins. It contributes billions of dollars to the United States economy annually.
Plants don’t sleep like humans do—but just like some people don’t rest well in the heat, some plants don’t either. The canola plant isn’t as productive if the temperature is high at nighttime, and scientists are trying to find out why.
On August 21, 2017, about 215 million American adults watched one of nature’s most dramatic events: a total solar eclipse. However, most of the country could only see a partial eclipse. The path of the total eclipse was a strip just 70 miles wide, arcing across the country from Oregon to South Carolina.
Leftovers can be quite valuable. For instance, when soybean seed is crushed and the oil extracted, what’s left is called soybean meal. You’ll want to save this leftover.