A farmer ties a bundle of rice sapling before planting them at the rice paddy field in Khokana, Lalitpur. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrak
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A Crucial Climate Mystery Is Just under Our Feet
What if the key to carbon sequestration was increasing agricultural yields? According to a recent study, it might be. By amping up harvests and turning up the volume on the microbes, sure, you get higher carbon emissions, but you also get more vigorous plants sucking up even more carbon. That, in turn, gives the plants enough carbon to produce a big harvest with a surplus carbon left over to sequester it into the soil

To Save Florida's Famous Oranges, Scientists Race to Weaponize a Virus
Florida’s citrus growers have been fighting against a deadly disease called citrus greening since 2005 when it first showed up in the state. To slow the spread of the sugar-sucking bacterium behind the scourge, which has infected 90% of Florida’s citrus groves, farmers are attempting to develop something like an arboreal vaccine, using a genetically modified virus to deliver bacteria-killing spinach proteins.

Fungal Pesticides Offer a Growing Alternative to Traditional Chemicals
The use of biopesticides is projected to grow at a faster rate than traditional synthetic pesticides over the next few years. Many of these products contain parasitic fungi—the kind that grow inside an insect's body and feed on its internal tissue. The benefits of using fungal-based biopesticides, rather than traditional chemicals, include their low environmental impact, inability to harm vertebrates, and ability to combat resistance.

The Busy Little Robot on a Quest to Help Humanity Feed Itself
Vinobot is a rover that uses a robotic arm to create detailed, 3-D models of plants, showing scientists the exact angles of leaves, while also collecting humidity, light intensity, and temperature at different levels of the plant. It is dispatched when a solar-powered tower, using 3-D cameras, spots an individual plant under stress. Vinobot’s main mission is to make sure crops weather global warming by increasing yields and density.