Genetics

Imtiyaz Khanday, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, is co-leading an international team that has propagated a commercial hybrid rice strain as a clone through seeds with 95 percent efficiency. The method that led to this breakthrough could lower the cost of hybrid rice seed, making high-yielding, disease-resistant rice strains available to low-income farmers worldwide.

For the sixth year in a row, Department of Plant Sciences faculty Eduardo Blumwald has been named a Highly Cited Researcher by an international database of scientific journals. Blumwald, a plant biologist, is among 10 UC Davis researchers to receive the distinction for 2022.

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.

Scientists Grey Monroe and Daniela Quiroz are trying to develop a technique that could speed research on processes affecting countless facets of biology – from how plants respond to stressful conditions to the changes that trigger cells’ cancerous growth. They just won a $50,000 boost for their work, with a grant from the UC Davis Science Translation and Innovative Research (STAIR™) program.

Downy mildew makes those dry, tan-colored spots on spinach leaves -- a problem especially in organic cultivation. Growers have safety measures to ensure spinach is attractive, tasty and safe, but pathogens keep coming up with new ways to get around them, said Allen Van Deynze, associate director of the UC Davis Plant Breeding Center, directed by Charlie Brummer.

As common crop diseases such as downy mildew, Fusarium and corky root evolve, Richard Michelmore and members of his lab look for the genetic basis of new variations and for genes in lettuce that can resist them. They hope to breed those qualities into existing cultivars that already stand up to multiple diseases.

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.

If wheat leaves could shift gears faster between moments of shade and light, plants could make more grain, increasing the capacity of a plot of ground to feed people.

Researchers are seeking the genes that control how quickly wheat leaves gear up when hit by flecks of sunlight. They are fueled by evidence of a stronger link between photosynthesis and crop yield than scientists have thought, said Assistant Professor Tom Buckley of the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.

A simple roadside weed may hold the key to understanding and predicting DNA mutation, according to new research from University of California, Davis, and the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany.

The findings, published today in the journal Nature, radically change our understanding of evolution and could one day help researchers breed better crops or even help humans fight cancer.