Figure 1. Map of California rice cultivation areas with an inset of the Sacramento Valley.

🌾 From Agrochemicals: New herbicide programs deliver near complete weed control in rice, boosting yields while helping manage rising herbicide resistance pressures. (Deniz Inci, Kassim Al-Khatib)

▶️ www.mdpi.com/2813-3145/5/...

#PlantScience #WeedScience

Postharvest methyl jasmonate dipping modulates lipid composition and volatile profiles to alleviate chilling injury in yellow-fleshed peach fruit - BMC Plant Biology BMC Plant Biology - Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) has been widely shown to mitigate chilling injury (CI) but the underlying mechanisms in peach remain largely unknown. Further, most MeJA studies focus on...

🌱 From BMC Plant Biology: A simple postharvest treatment helps peaches better withstand cold storage, preserving flavor and reducing losses in the supply chain. (Po-Kai Huang, Diane M. Beckles, Carlos H. Crisosto)

▶️ link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#PlantScience #PlantBiology #Postharvest

Decadal heat index anomalies. Change in mean heat index from a 1970–1979 base period time frame to the mean of following decades, aggregated to the climate division scale. Continuous color scale bins by consistent equal intervals.

🩺 From Geohealth: Greater long-term climate change is linked to higher heart disease and stroke rates, highlighting growing chronic health risks alongside environmental shifts. (Alessandro Ossola)

▶️ pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

#PlantScience #ClimateChange

Tomato Industry Taking Steps to Stop Spread of Parasitic Weed UC Davis researchers are playing a key research role in the battle against branched broomrape, developing in-field sanitation guidelines for tomato harvesters.

🌱 From UC Davis: Coordinated cleaning and reporting can slow the spread of parasitic weeds, protecting yields while keeping infested fields in production. (Brad Hanson, Cassandra Swett)

▶️ www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/to...

#PlantScience #WeedScience #PlantPathology

A market-based insurance approach aligns environmental and economic outcomes in maize nitrogen management - Communications Earth & Environment A market-based nitrogen insurance lets maize farmers cut excess fertilizer use without profit risk, as shown in simulations across 4,270 Illinois fields over 30 years and 33 nitrogen rates.

🌱 From Nature communications earth & environment: Nitrogen insurance pays farmers to use less fertilizer, cutting runoff and emissions while keeping profits, turning sustainability into a viable market incentive. (Cameron M. Pittelkow)

▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s43...

#PlantScience #AgEconomics

Good news for pasta lovers grows in UC Davis fields Scientists in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences are developing cultivars of pasta wheat that resist the deadly fungus that causes stripe rust and threatens the world's wheat production. Resist...

🌱 From UC Davis: Breeding durable gene combinations gives wheat stronger protection from stripe rust, helping stabilize yields for a crop that feeds a fifth of the world. (Xiaofei Zhang, Jorge Dubcovsky, Joshua Hegarty)

▶️ www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/news/dubcovs...

#PlantScience #PlantBreeding

Tougher Than They Look: Wildflowers Mix It Up to Survive Drought Wildflowers such as poppies and lupine mix strategies to survive drought: some risky and others conservative, both above-ground and below. Research from the lab of Jennifer Funk of the UC Davis Depart...

🌱From UC Davis: Wildflowers mix fast growth and deep roots to survive drought, offering a trait-based guide to select resilient species for changing climates. (Jennifer Funk)

▶️ www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/news/funk-wi...
#PlantScience #NativePlants

Frontiers | Biosolarization as an alternative method to inhibit parasitic Phelipanche ramosa germination Phelipanche ramosa, or branched broomrape, is a parasitic weed that attaches to the roots of host plants and can cause great agricultural losses, from reduce...

🌱 From Frontiers in Agronomy: Biosolarization can cut broomrape germination by over 99 percent, offering a faster, low-chemical option to protect crops from parasitic weeds. (Bradley D. Hanson)

▶️ www.frontiersin.org/journals/agr...

#PlantScience #WeedScience

Proximal Measurements of Solar-Induced Fluorescence and Surface Reflectance Capture Seasonal Productivity and Drought Stress Dynamics in a Semiarid Grassland Ecosystem | Journal of Remote Sensing Remote sensing approaches have been widely used to monitor gross primary productivity (GPP), but typically reflect changes in ecosystem state, e.g., green leaf area, rather than physiological function...

🌱 From Journal of Remote Sensing: Combining fluorescence and reflectance reveals when drought limits photosynthesis, improving monitoring of dryland productivity beyond greenness alone. (Troy S Magney)

▶️ spj.science.org/doi/10.34133...

#PlantScience #RemoteSensing

U-box E3 structural mechanisms and immune signaling networks. (a) NMR structure of the AtPUB14U-box (PDB: 1T1H, pale cyan). (b) Superimposition of the AtPUB14U-box (PDB: 1T1H, pale cyan), GmPUB13U-box (PDB: 7C96, wheat), and OsCIE1U-box (PDB: 7XED, light pink). (c) Crystal structure of the OsCIE1U-box (light pink) and OsUBC8 (light blue) complex (PDB: 7XED). (Bottom left) Close-up view of the E2-binding network with surface patch A. (Bottom middle) Close-up view of the OsCIE1U-box dimerization interface. (Bottom right) Close-up view of the E2-binding network with surface patch B. (d) Crystal structure of the GmPUB13U-box (wheat)-Avr1d (pale green) complex (PDB: 7C96). (right) Zoom-in views of the interaction network between GmPUB13U-box-Avr1d. (e) Two views of the crystal structure of the AvrPtoB CTD (C-terminal domain) (PDB: 2FD4, raspberry) showing the core fold, loops 1 and 2, and the partially disordered N-terminal domain regions. (f) Surface and cartoon representation of the AvrPtoBCTD (PDB: 2FD4, raspberry). Close-up view of the E2-binding residues. (g) Superimposition of the AtPUB14U-box (PDB: 1T1H, pale cyan) and AvrPtoBCTD (PDB: 2FD4, raspberry). Close-up view of the E2-binding residues. (h) Models of U-box E3s in positively regulating immunity. (Left) PUB2/4-interacting PTI components in Arabidopsis. (Left middle) Chitin-activated CERK1 phosphorylation of CIE1 (i), preventing E3-ligase activity and promoting the immune response as well as PUB44 and the MAPK cascade (ii), promoting PBI1 degradation and releasing WRKY45, in rice. (Right middle) PUB17-mediated degradation of KH17 in potato. (Right) Positive feedback loop by the MYC2-PUB22-JAZ4 module to promote JA signaling in tomato. (i) (Left) Secretion of SDE5 by CLas bacteria promotes PUB21-mediated MYC2 degradation and suppresses JA signaling in citrus. (Left middle) PUB25/26-mediated degradation of MYB6 and increased Verticillium dahliae susceptibility in Arabidopsis. (Right middle) PUB12/13-me…

🧬 From the plant journal: Ubiquitin ligases act as molecular switches that tune plant immunity, offering new routes to strengthen disease resistance without compromising growth. (Natalie Hamada, Katherine A. Hand, Nitzan Shabek)

▶️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#PlantScience #PlantBiology

What have we learned over the past 30 years since the discovery of the first TIR-containing plant immune receptor? Cloning of the necrotic-type response gene (N gene) from Nicotiana glutinosa in the 1990s identified the first Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR)-domain-containing nucleotide-binding domain and leucine...

🧬 From Trends in Plant Science: Thirty years of research on a key immune receptor reveal how plants detect pathogens, guiding strategies to build durable disease resistance in crops. (Savithramma P. Dinesh-Kumar)

▶️ www.cell.com/trends/plant...

#PlantScience #PlantBiology #Genomics

Unraveling plant phenotype to genotype associations with daily hyperspectral traits in Populus trichocarpa Hyperspectral remote sensing is a powerful, high-throughput phenotyping tool that quantifies physiologically and structurally relevant wavelengths acr…

🌱 From Plant Phenomics: Linking hyperspectral signals to genes reveals when and how photosynthesis traits shape tree growth. (Marie C. Klein, Christopher Y.S. Wong, J. Grey Monroe, Jack Bailey-Bale, Thomas N. Buckley, Troy S. Magney, Gail Taylor)
▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#PlantScience

Ceral crops grown in UC Davis fields

🌱 From Nature Food: Diversifying crop rotations boosts calories and nutrition without expanding farmland, challenging the tradeoff between productivity and sustainability. (Amélie C. M. Gaudin)

▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s43...

#PlantScience #FoodScience

Fig. 1. Location of the study site in California, United States (a). Map of UC Davis Experimental Ecovoltaic Park (UC DEEP) and adjacent land uses (b). Experimental plots within permitted research area (c). Photos of pollinators visiting wildflowers (d–ag): Vanessa cardui on Eschscholzia californica (d) and Clarkia unguiculata (e); Burnsius communis on Phacelia Californica (f); Colias eurytheme on Helianthus bolanderi (g); Pieris rapae on Grindelia camporum (h); Hesperiina phyleus on G. camporum (i); Strymon melinus on P. Califronica (j); Autographa californica (k) and Heliothis phloxiphaga (l) on H. bolanderi; Battaristis concinnusella (m), Halictus spp. (n), and Agapostemon spp. (o) on G. camporum; Diadasia spp. on H. bolanderi (p); Epimelissodes obliqua on G. camporum (q); Melissodes spp. on H. bolanderi (r); Bombus vosnesenskii (s) and Bombus californicus (t) on P. Califronica; Apis mellifera on Collinsia heterophylla (u); Gilia capitata (v); E. californica (w), Nemophila menziesii (x), Silybum marianum (y), Erodium cicutarium (z), and Helminthotheca echioides (aa); Eupeodes spp. on E. californica (ab) and H. bolanderi (ac); Eristalis hirta on H. echioides (ad); Polistes dominula on E. californica (ae); Coccinella septempunctata on P. Califronica (af); Nemognatha lurida on H. bolanderi (ag).

🌱 Journal of Environmental Management: Restoring native prairie under solar panels can boost pollinator diversity up to sixfold, showing energy sites can support biodiversity with careful plant design.(Yudi Li,Rebecca R. Hernandez)
▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience #Restoration

4 Elected as AAAS Fellows Four faculty from the University of California, Davis, have been elected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, class of 2025. They are among nearly 500 scientists, eng...

🌱 From UC Davis: Congratulations to Gitta Coaker. AAAS recognition highlights how decoding plant immunity can guide the development of durable disease resistance and more resilient crop systems.
@gittacoaker.bsky.social

▶️ www.ucdavis.edu/news/4-elect...

#PlantScience #PlantPathology

Fig. 1. Map of study sites from all 115 papers. The red dots represent the coordinates of the study sites in each paper, and the yellow shading represents the countries in which the studies were conducted. The climate delineations – temperate (22 observations, 4 papers), subtropical (488 observations, 95 papers), tropical (69 observations, 16 papers) – are shown between the horizontal lines.

🌾 From Field Crops Research: Global meta-analysis reveals no till in rice often lowers yields, but works best in fertile, neutral pH, clay soils without sacrificing production. (Mia Godbey, Cameron M. Pittelkow, Bruce Linquist)
▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience #InternationalAg

MicroRNA156 and its targeted SPL genes interact with the photoperiod, vernalization, and gibberellin pathways to regulate wheat heading time Wheat heading time is critical for adaptation to diverse environments. We generated dominant mutations for the SPL3, SPL4, and SPL13 genes that accelerate heading time. Different combinations of thes...

🌱 From the plant journal: Tuning a small RNA pathway shifts wheat heading by days, helping crops match warmer winters and variable seasons without transgenic approaches. (Qiujie Liu, Jorge Dubcovsky)

▶️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#PlantScience

Corn plants from UC Davis fields.

🌱 Current Opinion in Biotechnology (Review): Clonal seeds could lock in hybrid vigor, stabilizing yields. Synthetic apomixis is advancing, but fertility and cross-crop transfer remain key hurdles. (Hui Ren, Venkatesan Sundaresan)

▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience #PlantBreeding

Differential responses of prokaryotic and fungal communities in soil microenvironments to drying and wetting as affected by soil aggregate isolation method Microorganisms live in communities within and on the surface of soil aggregates of varying sizes. A growing body of evidence suggests that different s…

🌎 From Geoderma: Soil drying and handling methods strongly shape microbial communities, with bacteria and fungi responding differently, affecting how we study and manage soil health. (Jonathan Y. Lin, Jorge L. Mazza Rodrigues)

▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience #SoilScience

Unlocking Longevity Insights From Ancient Bristlecone Pine Scientists have sequenced the bristlecone pine genome, which could help unlock the secrets of this tree's exceptionally long life.

🌱 From UC Davis: Sequencing the bristlecone pine genome creates a key resource to study extreme longevity and resilience, with implications for forests under climate change. (Steven Salzberg, David Neale, Constance Millar)

▶️ www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news...

#PlantScience #ClimateChange

Figure 1. Current distribution of Pinus longaeva (small dots, as placed from site coordinates derived from Burchfield et al. 2021). The shaded, bounded area of the map denotes the hydrologic Great Basin, USA, encompassing almost entirely all the known P. longaeva distribution sites.

🌲 From G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics: A reference genome for bristlecone pine opens new paths to study extreme longevity and how trees survive harsh, changing mountain environments. (David B Neale, Patrick E McGuire)

▶️ academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

#PlantScience #Genomics

(a) Stages of Fusarium wilt on strawberry plants using an ordinal disease rating scale system from a disease score (DS) of 1 (highly resistant) to 5 (highly susceptible). A DS <3 indicates healthy, and ≥3 indicates symptomatic. We identified cultivars that were resistant to Fusarium wilt if they showed a DS of <3 on July 23, 2021. (b) A conceptual figure showing the potential change in DSs or spectral index in susceptible cultivars (orange line) relative to those that are resistant (purple). We hypothesize that susceptible cultivars will deviate from resistant cultivars from disease onset and show larger changes in DSs and spectral indices over time. (c) A photo of strawberry plants in the field.

🍓 From Plant Phenome Journal: Hyperspectral sensing detected Fusarium wilt in strawberries weeks before symptoms, enabling earlier intervention and improved disease management in crops. (Jessie Au, Troy S. Magney)

▶️ acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

#PlantScience #PlantPathology

A machine learning framework for California vineyard water status monitoring using sUAS Imagery and short-term meteorological data - Irrigation Science Efficient irrigation management is essential for sustainable crop production under increasing temperatures and tightening water supplies. In vineyards, water status significantly influences vine growt...

🖥️ From Irrigation Science: Drone imagery and weather data map vineyard water stress at field scale, helping growers target irrigation and manage water under heat and scarcity. (Andrew McElrone, Nicolas Bambach Ortiz, Sebastian Castro)
▶️ link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#PlantScience #Viticulture

Effect of ultrasound pretreatment assisted drying methods on structural and thermal properties of soy protein isolate Soy protein isolate, a essential component in various food products, can be greatly impacted by the drying process, influencing its quality and functi…

🌱 Ultrasonics Sonochemistry: Ultrasound pretreatment improved soy protein quality by reducing off-flavors and enhancing functionality, leading to better performance in plant-based foods. (Farzaneh Khorsandi)

▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience #AgEngineering

Global water-nutrient-salinity-energy nexus in lettuce production: From open-field irrigation to closed-loop hydroponics in greenhouses Hydroponic greenhouse production is a proven approach to enhancing resource efficiency and overcoming limitations related to land availability, soil d…

🥬 Journal of Agriculture and Food Research: Closed-loop hydroponic lettuce can reduce water use and prevent salinity buildup, but shifts production toward higher energy demands, reshaping trade-offs. (Saeed Karimzadeh, Andre Daccache, Md Shamim Ahamed)

▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Advancing Soil Moisture Prediction Using Satellite and UAV-based Imagery with Machine Learning Models - Earth Systems and Environment Crop yields in Pakistan are significantly lower than their potential, primarily due to limited water availability and the reliance on rotation water delivery instead of demand-based water supply. The ...

📡 From Earth Systems and Environment: Combining satellite and drone data with machine learning enables precise soil moisture mapping, helping target irrigation and improve water use in dry farming systems. (Andre Daccache)

▶️ link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#PlantScience #AgEngineering #AI

Almonds on the tree from the UC Davis Department of P lLant Sciences orchards

🌱 From Food and Bioprocess Technology: Off-ground almond harvest cuts insect damage by half, but higher moisture requires tailored drying, new postharvest strategies for quality and efficiency. (Zhaokun Ning, Ragab Khir, Zhongli Pan)

▶️ link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#PlantScience #Entomology

Geographical distribution of the collected ecotypes in Iran.

🌱 From Biochemical Systematics and Ecology: Metabolite profiles distinguish closely related plant genera, showing chemistry can help resolve taxonomy and guide discovery of useful plant compounds. (Daniel Potter)

▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience #Chemistry #Taxonomy

Violin plot for sustainable yield index (SYI) of rice-rice and rice-wheat cropping systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) and non-IGP sites. Violin shapes show the kernel density of SYI values. Vertical bar shows the median.

🌱 From Crop and Environment: Decades of trials show rice systems stay more productive and stable when balanced fertilizers are paired with manure, strengthening soil and long-term yields. (Jagdish Kumar Ladha)

▶️ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#PlantScience #Agriculture

The left circle shows how plant breeding and fiber science increase dietary fiber while assessing farming, milling, bread-making, health, and economic impacts. The arrows show continuous feedback and improvement loop. The right circle shows public health stakeholders supporting incentives, such as grower premiums. The “little hinge” coordinates.

🌱 From Foods: Breeding staple crops for higher nutrition could improve public health at scale, reducing chronic disease risk without requiring diet changes. (Barbara Schneeman, Payam Vahmani, Xiaofei Zhang)

▶️ www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/15...

#PublicHealth #Agriculture #PlantBreeding #SmallGrains