USDA and Russian Scientists develop high-tech crop map

AgroAtlas is a new interactive website that shows the geographic distributions of 100 crops; 640 species of crop diseases, pests, and weeds; and 560 wild crop relatives growing in Russia and neighbouring countries. Down-loadable maps and geographic information system (GIS) software are also available, allowing layering of data, such as that relating major wheat production areas to concentrations of Russian wheat aphids.

According to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) plant geneticist Stephanie Greene, the impetus behind developing AgroAtlas was to promote world food security, particularly in Newly Independent States-countries of the former Soviet Union striving to broaden their agricultural base. Greene works in the National Temperate Forage Legume Genetic Resources Unit operated at Prosser, Washington , by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency. Read more ...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine from Perendale Publishers.