Better corn varieties encourage more crops

The area planted to corn in Australia in on the increase says a USA researcher. Dr Kendell Hellewell says it's due to the improved eating quality in hybrid varieties which has seen an increase in market demand. In turn this has encouraged more farmers to plant.

"We have a couple of hybrids that are performing well. The main hybrid that we sell here is Passion. It's a yellow sweet corn that has shown good performance with really good eating quality. I think the acres are growing as people start eating more sweet corn," he says. Read more ...

The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine and the International Milling Directory from Perendale Publishers. And blogs are written by the staff of Grain & Feed Milling Technology daily. Get your copy of 'PPLAPP', our mobile web application which will allow you to view this blog and other useful information while on the move.

When measuring GHG take the crop into account

A recent  study carried out suggest that when taking measurements of Green House Gases (GHG) you should also take into account the crop itself. This study was published in the Journal of Environmental Quality and examined the farm practices such as tillage. Expressing emissions per unit of crop yield rather than on a more conventional areal basis produced very different results, says the study’s leader, Rod Venterea, research soil scientist with the USDA-ARS. Read more ...

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

Study links climate change to changes in crop yields

A new study says climate change has reduced the world's wheat and maise production. The study says rice and soybean yields have also decreased in some places but increased in others. In the words of the researchers: "For soybeans and rice, winners and losers largely balanced out."

The researchers studied climate trends and global crop production from between nineteen eighty and two thousand eight. They found that climate changes "are already exerting a considerable drag on yield growth" and may have affected food prices. Read more ...

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

Combating plant diseases is key for sustainable crops

Climate change is likely to make plants more vulnerable to infectious disease, which will threaten crop yield and impact on the price and availability of food. Dr Adrian Newton, presenting his work at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring Conference in Harrogate, explains how exploiting diversity in crops is the best option to improve food security in a changing climate.

Pest and disease management has helped double food production in the last 40 years, but 10-16 percent of the global harvest is still lost to plant diseases each year costing an estimated US$220 billion (UK£135.021 billion). Climate change is impacting on the micro-organisms that cause these diseases. Read more ...

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

Ants and termites boost dryland wheat yields

Ants and termites have a significant positive impact on crop yields in dryland agriculture, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Communications by scientists at CSIRO and the University of Sydney."

Ants and termites perform the same ecosystem service functions in dryland agriculture that earthworms perform in cooler and wetter areas, but the potential for ants and termites to provide these benefits has received little attention until now," said CSIRO's Dr Theo Evans.

"We already knew that the activities of ants and termites affect soil structure, aeration, water infiltration and nutrient cycling in natural ecosystems but we wondered whether they also perform these services in agricultural landscapes." Read more ...

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

Untapped crop data from Africa predicts corn peril if temperatures rise

A hidden trove of historical crop yield data from Africa shows that corn long believed to tolerate hot temperatures is a likely victim of global warming. Stanford agricultural scientist David Lobell and researchers at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) report in the inaugural issue of Nature Climate Change that a clear negative effect of warming on maize or corn production was evident in experimental crop trial data conducted in Africa by the organisation and its partners from 1999 to 2007.

Led by Lobell, the researchers combined data from 20,000 trials in sub-Saharan Africa with weather data recorded at stations scattered across the region. They found that a temperature rise of a single degree Celsius would cause yield losses for 65 percent of the present maize-growing region in Africa provided the crops received the optimal amount of rainfall. Under drought conditions, the entire maize-growing region would suffer yield losses, with more than 75 percent of areas predicted to decline by at least 20 percent for 1 degree Celsius of warming. Read more ...

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

Biotech leading to higher-yielding hybrid rice

BASF Plant Science and Bayer CropScience announced a long-term collaboration agreement to improve rice productivity through plant biotechnology. The companies aim to develop and commercialize hybrid rice seeds with traits enabling yield advances of 10 percent or more over conventional hybrid rice seeds. In this global, non-exclusive agreement, BASF Plant Science licenses yield-increasing technologies to Bayer CropScience for commercialization in Bayer CropScience’s Arize hybrid rice. The agreement encompasses all major rice growing geographies, with first products expected to be launched by 2020.

Within the scope of the agreement, BASF Plant Science is responsible for the research and development activities leading to the selection of higher-yielding rice traits, and for obtaining the regulatory approvals needed for commercialization. Bayer CropScience will integrate these higher-yielding traits into leading Arize rice hybrids. The companies will communicate and work closely with key rice stakeholders as the products near commercialization. The final products will be brought to farmers by Bayer CropScience. Financial details of the collaboration were not disclosed.

”We are very happy to announce Bayer CropScience as our first partner in bringing higher yielding rice to farmers around the world,” said Marc Ehrhardt, Senior Vice President at BASF Plant Science. “BASF has a great portfolio of superior yield enhancing and stress tolerance genes that we have already screened in rice plants. With Bayer CropScience, we now have a partner with a strong market position and long-term experience on our side.” Read more...

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