A course that trains African scientists to use genetic tools to improve food production on the continent has begun its third round, with guidance and support from UC Davis.
The African Plant Breeding Academy’s third cohort is offered through the African Orphan Crops Consortium, an initiative co-founded with UC Davis. Allen Van Deynze is the AOCC’s scientific director and based in the Department of Plant Sciences.
How can farmers and ranchers continue to grow our food while facing challenges of a changing climate, increasingly scarce water, land use pressures and rising costs? More than a decade of research is revealing important ways universities, government agencies and other support organizations can help our food producers develop resilience to these challenges and remain profitable.
Ranchers, land managers, conservationists, policymakers and scientists will gather to discuss the evolving challenges and opportunities in managing the state’s rangelands at the 2025 Rustici Rangeland Science Symposium on Feb. 18at UC Davis.
Tijn van Kessel had leukemia at the age of 10 and survived, but nearly two in 10 children don’t. His Uncle Chris -- founding chair of the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences -- was deeply impacted by that horrifying statistic. Now, Chris van Kessel is cycling to support childhood cancer research, and he's inviting your support.
Department of Plant Sciences graduate students Isabel Ortega-Salazar and Saskia Mesquida Pesci swept the Young Minds awards for the best student oral presentations at the Postharvest 2024 International Conference, recently hosted by the International Society for Horticultural Science in New Zealand.
Six women from around the world, all leaders in their fields, have spent the fall quarter at UC Davis learning from researchers here and from one another. Soon, each will return to her country to improve food systems there and empower more women.
The people who produce our food need support -- especially in the areas of mental and physical well-being -- to recover from increasingly widespread wildfire, scientists have found. Postdoctoral researcher Natalia Pinzon Jimenez suggests the federal Farm Bill could help by funding programs for producers.
A scraggly grapevine collected in 1906 and stored at the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium has yielded clues to when Pierce's disease arrived in California and how the bacterium that causes it has evolved since then. Scientists hope to use that information to prevent and, eventually, treat the deadly blight, which has spread to wine-growing regions around the world.
In hotter, drier areas where natural regeneration is weaker, well-timed tree planting can boost post-fire forest recovery by up to 200 percent, according to research by Andrew Latimer and Derek Young, in the Department of Plant Sciences.
California ranchers benefit when they plan ahead for extreme weather variability, according to rancher surveys and interviews conducted by a team headed by Leslie Roche, a professor of Cooperative Extension in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.
Mohsen Mesgaran, at the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, and team are developing a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence to help growers, backyard gardeners, landowners and others identify and treat weeds. The state Department of Food and Agriculture is funding the project with a grant of nearly $430,000. The development is expected to take two years.
A team of scientists, including Gail Taylor of the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, has identified a gene in poplar trees that enhances photosynthesis and can boost tree height by as much as 200 percent. Discovery of the “Booster” gene has enormous potential for both the nation’s efforts to create plant-based jet fuel and to boost the yield of key food crops.
Two scientists in the Department of Plant Sciences -- Eduardo Blumwald and Tom Buckley -- have been named “highly cited researchers” in the field of plant and animal science for 2024 by the citation index Web of Science, owned by Clarivate.
They are among nine UC Davis researchers named for 2024. The distinction is based on the frequency their published work is cited by other scientists, showing “significant and broad influence in their fields,” according to Clarivate.
The inaugural Global Food Systems Research Day, held Oct. 24 at UC Davis, underscored the role of scientists in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences in the effort to build sustainable agricultural and distribution systems providing nutritious and affordable food to people all over the world.
