Browse Plant Breeding Stories - Page 3

33 results found for Plant Breeding
University of Georgi Crop and Soil Sciences Professor Wayne Parrott and Assistant Professor Jason Wallace are working with the carnivorous water plant bladderwort in hopes that its unique genetic structure can shed some light on ways to reduce crosstalk between new genes during advanced plant breeding. CAES News
Bladderwort Research
With the advent of CRISPR technologies and other precise genome editing methods, it has become faster and easier for crop scientists to breed new varieties. But there are still a few technical roadblocks that need to be overcome.
Scott Jackson, director of the University of Georgia Center for Applied Genetic Technologies (CAGT) in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, helped to map these genomes as part of the international Oryza Map Alignment Project (OMAP). CAES News
Rice Genome
Rice has been a staple food crop around the world for millennia, but little was known about the wild origins of the world’s most widely produced crop until the recent mapping of the genomes of 13 ancestral rice species. Scott Jackson, director of the University of Georgia Center for Applied Genetic Technologies (CAGT) in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, helped to map these genomes as part of The International Oryza Map Alignment Project.
Millet close-up CAES News
Resilient Pearl Millet
As farmers around the world battle extreme drought and other climate events, researchers turn to pearl millet to find ways to make other grains more resilient to climate change. A global team of 65 scientists, including nine from the University of Georgia, have decoded some of the secrets to the crop’s coping strategies.
University of Georgia scientist Peggy Ozias-Akins, a College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences professor of horticulture on the UGA Tifton Campus, applies advanced biotechnology and molecular biology tools — tools she developed herself in some cases — to improve crops like peanuts. CAES News
Ozias-Akins Honored
University of Georgia Professor Peggy Ozias-Akins has been awarded the title of Distinguished Research Professor, an honor awarded to UGA faculty recognized internationally for their contributions to knowledge and whose work promises to foster continued creativity in their discipline. She and her colleagues have created new and improved plant varieties that are higher yielding, more disease resistant, more nutritious or have greater ornamental value.
Members of the research team prepare to test multispectral, hyperspectral and thermal cameras that will record data on plant characteristics last summer at the Iron Horse Plant Sciences Farm near Athens. The tractor used for preliminary testing will be replaced by all-terrain robots and unmanned aerial vehicles during the growing season this spring and summer. CAES News
Crop Robots
It may be a while before robots and drones are as common as tractors and combine harvesters on farms, but high-tech tools may soon play a major role in helping feed the world’s rapidly growing population.
Peng Chee is a cotton breeder on the UGA Tifton Campus. CAES News
Cotton Breeding
UGA cotton breeder Peng Chee’s groundbreaking research in molecular genetics provides Georgia cotton farmers with root-knot-nematode-resistant cotton varieties. It has also garnered Chee national recognition.
The ‘Avalon’ pecan, compared here to two other varieties, is a highly desired cultivar due to its extreme resistance to scab disease. CAES News
Avalon Variety
The University of Georgia’s newest pecan variety will be released next spring and has shown good resistance against scab disease so far, according to Patrick Conner, a horticultural scientist at the UGA Tifton Campus.
A picture of a corn field from a few years ago. Recent rains have helped this year's corn crop, according to UGA Extension specialist Eric Prostko. CAES News
Road Trip
Like many other young people, plant pathology graduate student Russell Ingram’s friends have an epic road trip planned for this summer. The difference is that instead of setting off for a music festival in the desert or visiting a beach, Ingram’s pals are hitting the road in search of jobs.
Two women tour the organic production plots at UGA's Durham Horticulture Farm during UGA's 2014 Organic Twilight Tour. CAES News
Twilight Tour
Organic and sustainable agriculture experts from the University of Georgia will host their fifth annual Organic Twilight Tour on Thursday, July 14 from 6-8 p.m. at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Durham Horticulture Farm at 1221 Hog Mountain Road in Watkinsville, Georgia.
UGArden manager JoHannah Biang teaches Andy Myers, Lipscomb University student of sustainability and environmental agriculture, how to drive a small tractor as part of a workshop at the 2015 Georgia Organics Conference, Feb. 20-21, in Athens. CAES News
Organic Farming Classes
University of Georgia organic agriculture experts and economists are teaming up to present the Organic Farming Workshop to provide farmers with new ways to maximize the ecology and economical sustainability of their farm.