CEOs need to accelerate their action plans to safeguard the production of commodities critical to the global population and economy as heat stress and drought risk rise around the world, according to PwC's report, Climate Risks to Nine Key Commodities: Protecting People and Prosperity, published. The report, which analysed nine …
RESEARCHERS in Kenya say a natural means of eradicating the stemborer pest -- the main enemy of maize -- is a 3-mm-long wasp, native to Pakistan. Scientists at the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology are reassuring environmentalists who fear that though the wasp may be an economical and …
WHY DOES popcorn pop and not ordinary corn? Because popcorn has a thicker hull and contains starch with superior puffing quality, say Brazilian scientists who compared four varieties of corn and three kinds of popcorn (Nature, Vol 362, No 6419). They found the popcorn kernel's ability to absorb heat efficiently …
THE DAYS of the European corn borer, a notorious maize pest found in North America and Europe, seem numbered now that researchers have been able to inject into susceptible crops a gene fatal to the insect (BiolTechnology, Vol 11, No 2). But the gene, which has been taken from a …
It's a scam with a difference. Khem Singh Gill, vice-chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, and a noted wheat-breeder himself, is the target of allegations that PBW 34, a wheat variety he claims to have developed, may actually be India's first instance of gene theft. R K Batra, president …
WHILE rice transplantation is a traditional practice in Asia, maize transplantation, a fairly recent technique, is now gaining ground in many countries. The technique helps farmers harvest a third crop in areas where none would have been possible because of a short summer. North Korea has already doubled its maize …
