Climate change

Shuxiao “Susan” Zhang wants to figure out how pistachio trees can do such a good job dealing with drought and saline soil. And, did you know? Pistachio nut shells naturally split when they ripen! She’s trying to figure that out, too.

Farmers can use an easy, on-farm test to figure how much nitrogen their crops need, saving money on fields that already have plenty of the nutrient and boosting production on fields that don’t. Warning: Special equipment you’ll need includes a pair of scissors and a garlic press.

Doctoral student Valentina Roel is looking at ways to use food scraps and yard waste as alternatives to nitrogen fertilizer for crops. When processed, the leftovers and garden trimmings being diverted from state landfills might be effective substitutes, because they contain both nitrogen and carbon in forms that promote soil health.

They also provide a path for slowing climate change.

Doctoral student Marie Klein won the competition for best elevator talk describing her research at the recent annual meeting of the Center for Bioenergy Innovation, held in June in Asheville, N.C.

Scientists in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences have landed $2.1 million in federal grants to develop varieties of green beans, chile peppers and alfalfa that can offer farmers greater quality, lower production costs and better yield amid the growing heat and drought already happening with climate change.

The grants from the United States Department of Agriculture come through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

Craft bakers love adding a little triticale to breads for its subtle blend of nutty and earthy flavors and its moist, slightly chewy texture. Farmers love the grain mainly for forage: It produces bigger yields with less water and fertilizer compared to wheat. Now, Joshua Hegarty and colleagues across the country will work on combining those qualities to create new varieties of triticale that are good for bread-baking at commercial scale, and still offer good value for growers.

Dwarfing genes in cereal crops made the Green Revolution of the 1960s possible, but they have limitations. Scientists at UC Davis have discovered a gene that can overcome some of those limitations in wheat by controlling plant height, while boosting yield in fields where water is less plentiful. Their discovery was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, or FFAR, named UC Davis Assistant Professor Alessandro Ossola among its 10 recipients of the 2022 New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award.

Plant breeders can help America re-orient our dominant system of single-crop agriculture toward a multi-crop landscape that is less costly to farmers, better for the environment, helps slow climate change and still yields a profit. But, those efforts are just one part of a complex system that also will require the buy-in of farmers themselves, supported by political will, new agricultural policies and the cooperation of scientists, seed companies, machinery and fertilizer manufacturers, insurance providers, banks and environmental groups.

The Taylor Lab will receive continued funding as part of a ground-breaking project to wean the United States’ aviation industry off petroleum-based fuel and help put the brakes on climate change. The U.S. Department of Energy announced the UC Davis project as part of a $590 million package over the next five years. The Taylor Lab’s goal: grow poplar trees that can be turned into sustainable, cost-effective jet fuel.