A study led by UC Davis researchers shows that genetic diversity within a single species can significantly impact the survival of entire food webs. This finding has important implications for agriculture, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation.
UC Davis leads a $15 million, five-year project to accelerate wheat breeding in response to climate change. The project involves 41 institutions and focuses on new traits for wheat, improving breeding methods, and training the next generation of plant breeders.
Climate change creates hotter weather and drier seasons – and new challenges for farmers. With excessive heat damaging seed quality, seed producers and growers increasingly need uniform and productive crops with thermotolerance.
Giulia Marino, a crop physiologist, is the new UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Specialist in Orchard Systems, and a faculty member in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). She is primarily based at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier, California, and has a second office in Wickson Hall at UC Davis.
Bioenergy crops are central to climate mitigation strategies. Bioenergy is a developing renewable resource, but it can impact land for food, and ecosystem services. Gail Taylor, Plant Sciences, received $2.52 million from the Department of Energy to develop bioenergy poplar trees for low-quality, marginal land.
A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, suggests that photorespiration wastes little energy and instead enhances nitrate assimilation, the process that converts nitrate absorbed from the soil into protein.
