Climate change

The University of California, Davis, recently announced that philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick, co-owners of The Wonderful Company, have pledged the largest gift ever to the university by individual donors. The $50 million pledge will support the school’s longstanding commitment to address today’s most pressing challenges in agriculture and environmental sustainability.

Succotash lovers, rejoice: UC Davis researchers will lead a national effort to enlarge the resources for breeding tender, buttery lima beans. The project includes looking at key traits that people and growers want, finding where on the lima bean genome those traits are located, breeding and field trials to grow plants with the most desirable qualities, and creating a public database that other breeders can use to create new and better varieties.

New varieties of rice that offer more effective weed control with less herbicide were showcased by UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences researchers at the recent Rice Field Day north of Yuba City in California's Central Valley. Amid the West’s ongoing drought, green rice with heads full of grain stood tall and lush in some test plots, while dry, brown stubble poked up in others. Department researchers discussed the impact of letting ricelands go fallow, including potential for pest control and ways to conserve soil moisture.

Some undergraduate students may be willing to accept slightly lower grades in exchange for easier scheduling, researchers concluded during a study of undergraduate performance in one online course. Results of their study were recently published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment Nature.

Master’s student Isha Poudel wants to bring agricultural technology to rural communities while empowering women farmers in her homeland of Nepal. Poudel is among 12 young scientists who will get help with her career goals after being named to this year’s Future Leaders Forum by the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development.

Researchers in the Department of Plant Sciences have found a way to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizers needed to grow cereal crops such as rice. The discovery could save farmers in the United States billions of dollars annually in fertilizer costs while also benefiting the environment.

The research comes out of the lab of Eduardo Blumwald, a distinguished professor of plant sciences, who has found a new pathway for cereals to capture the nitrogen they need to grow.

Natural disasters don't just happen anymore. In a new paper, UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences Prof. Mary L. Cadenasso and colleagues offer a framework for understanding the connection between natural processes and human activity and how they combine to create human-natural disasters.

America’s grand challenge to develop sustainable, plant-based jet fuel offers a model for young scientists showing the value of collaboration across disciplines and institutions, a leading biofuels scientist said at the recent UC Davis Plant Sciences Symposium.

For the first time, an ecologist has shown that genetic variety within one species can affect the survival of other creatures in a larger food web. The discovery has profound implications for crop production and environmental restoration, researchers say.

Perhaps trees aren’t the only green solution when it comes to cooling urban spaces and reducing energy costs. Honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, pink trumpet and other vines could be a fast-growing substitute in climate-smart cities of the future.

Researchers from UC Davis are leading a nearly $880,000 federal grant to study how vines may provide cooling and shade in Western states in less time than it takes a tree to grow tall.