Problems faced by agriculture amid climate change are closely intertwined with non-ag issues. Solutions often have downsides. We have to embrace the complexity, talk to each other, innovate, use technology and be flexible to find solutions that feed us without causing harm to people and while improving and protecting the environment.
Researchers from the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences attended the 39th biennial Rice Technical Working Group conference, held Feb. 20-23 in Hot Springs, Ark. The conference is hosted by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
A team of researchers from University of California, Davis, has been awarded a $6.5 million grant to use 3-D modeling, artificial intelligence and crop genetics to develop a tool to improve and accelerate breeding pipelines for legumes and sorghum.
Funding for the project, known as GEMINI*, comes from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Ice cream in the making” – this is the unusual designation given to alfalfa by Dan Putnam, a Cooperative Extension Specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
Alfalfa is often overshadowed by California’s more famous vegetable and fruit crops, like nuts and wine, despite the key roles it plays for our food systems. It’s a highly productive crop that serves as the basis for milk, cheese, leather, honey and wool production. In other words, what lies behind the carton of ice cream on the refrigerator shelf is a field of alfalfa.
Distinguished Professor and John B Orr Endowed Professor in Environmental Plant Sciences
Emeriti
Plant adaptation to a changing climate, genetics and genomics of leafy salad crops, non-food woody biomass crops for bioenergy. Sustainability, ecosystem services, plants and the Sustainable Development Goals.
