Featured
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Where I Work |
Cultivating cannabis in the shadow of a volcano
Agriculturist Rohan McDonald is rebuilding a medical-cannabis laboratory after an eruption destroyed his team’s work.
- James Mitchell Crow
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Correspondence |
West Africa: make cocoa production truly sustainable
- Thomas Addoah
- , Joss Lyons-White
- & Rachael Garrett
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Article |
Crop switching can enhance environmental sustainability and farmer incomes in China
Spatial optimizations of high-resolution data from China on crop-specific yields, harvested areas, environmental footprints and farmer incomes shows that crop switching can enhance environmental sustainability and farmer incomes, and contribute substantially towards China’s agricultural sustainable development targets.
- Wei Xie
- , Anfeng Zhu
- & Kyle Frankel Davis
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News & Views |
Huge broad-bean genome could improve yields of an underused crop
A high-quality reference genome has been generated for the broad bean (also known as the faba or fava bean). The sequence could be used to identify ways to increase yield, improve pest resistance and more.
- Eric J. B. von Wettberg
- & Azalea Guerra-Garcia
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Nature Podcast |
How the Australian wildfires devastated the ozone layer
Why smoke particles from wildfires lead to ozone depletion, and modelling food systems with ‘digital twins’.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Correspondence |
Brazil: plan for zero vegetation loss in the Cerrado
- Ricardo B. Machado
- , Ludmilla M. S. Aguiar
- & José Maria C. Silva
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World View |
Sims-style ‘digital twin’ models can tell us if food systems will weather crises
From COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine, virtual models could inform global food policy before emergencies unfold.
- Zia Mehrabi
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Article |
Optimal nitrogen rate strategy for sustainable rice production in China
A proposed optimal nitrogen rate strategy together with analysis of an extensive on-farm dataset shows that meeting national rice production targets in 2030 in China is possible while concurrently reducing nationwide nitrogen consumption.
- Siyuan Cai
- , Xu Zhao
- & Xiaoyuan Yan
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Article |
Ageing threatens sustainability of smallholder farming in China
Rural population ageing reduces the sustainability of smallholder farming in China, but the transition to a new farming model could reverse the negative effects of rural population ageing.
- Chenchen Ren
- , Xinyue Zhou
- & Baojing Gu
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Nature Video |
This device corkscrews itself into the ground like a seed
Inspired by nature, this little wooden ‘robot’ has been designed to bury itself.
- Shamini Bundell
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News & Views |
Self-burying robot morphs wood to sow seeds
A natural seed has inspired the design of a robot that can bury itself in soil when exposed to rainfall. The mechanism relies on the shape-changing properties of wood — a simple and elegant example of sustainable innovation.
- Samuel E. Mason
- & Naomi Nakayama
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News |
Antibiotic use in farming set to soar despite drug-resistance fears
Analysis finds antimicrobial drug use in agriculture is much higher than reported.
- Sara Reardon
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Spotlight |
How France became the unlikely home of the insect-farming industry
The country is known for its love of meat. Could the growing insect industry help to reduce agricultural carbon emissions?
- Rachael Pells
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Research Highlight |
A flame dies out when it meets self-extinguishing cotton
Genetic variants that confer fire resistance could replace the artificial flame retardants currently added to textiles.
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News & Views |
How to feed the world while reducing nitrogen pollution
An analysis of more than 1,500 field observations has identified a collection of agricultural practices that can improve the use of nitrogen fertilizers — boosting crop yields while reducing environmental pollution.
- Longlong Xia
- & Xiaoyuan Yan
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Article
| Open AccessCost-effective mitigation of nitrogen pollution from global croplands
A meta-analysis of 1,521 field observations from the past two decades led to the identification of 11 key measures to cost-effectively mitigate nitrogen pollution from global croplands.
- Baojing Gu
- , Xiuming Zhang
- & Deli Chen
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Comment |
EU climate plan sacrifices carbon storage and biodiversity for bioenergy
Incoming policies will cause the European Union to harvest more wood, shift one-fifth of cropland to bioenergy and outsource deforestation, analysis shows.
- Timothy Searchinger
- , Oliver James
- & Stefan Wirsenius
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Career Feature |
Decolonization should extend to collaborations, authorship and co-creation of knowledge
Institutions must change the reward structure to value a wider range of perspectives.
- Virginia Gewin
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Outlook |
How to rescue biofuels from a sustainable dead end
An environmentally friendly path forwards for liquid fuel derived from plants will depend on smarter agriculture and smarter regulation.
- Peter Fairley
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Research Briefing |
A gene variant in maize that increases protein content
Crops such as maize need nitrogen to create protein, and the yield of many modern crops relies on nitrogen fertilizers. A previously unknown gene variant found in a non-domesticated maize variety enables plants to use nitrogen more efficiently and produce more protein than their modern counterparts.
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News |
When will India approve its first GM food crop?
India’s highest court is considering whether to allow genetically modified mustard – a vital source of cooking oil – to be grown in open fields.
- T.V. Padma
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Article |
THP9 enhances seed protein content and nitrogen-use efficiency in maize
Genetic analyses of teosinte, the wild ancestor of maize, identify a locus (THP9) that is associated with high seed protein content and increased nitrogen-use efficiency, suggesting that THP9 could have applications in crop breeding.
- Yongcai Huang
- , Haihai Wang
- & Yongrui Wu
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Editorial |
Farming feeds the world. We desperately need to know how to do it better
Interventions designed to improve agricultural practices often lack a solid evidence base. A new initiative could change that.
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Comment |
Avert Bangladesh’s looming water crisis through open science and better data
Intensive irrigation and climate change are depleting groundwater reserves in this fast-developing nation. To improve its water security, researchers need more information on water use, quality, flows and forecasts.
- Augusto Getirana
- , Nishan Kumar Biswas
- & Robin Kumar Biswas
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Correspondence |
China: protect home-grown solutions to food security
- Faith Ka Shun Chan
- , Yong-Guan Zhu
- & Jiannan Chen
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Career Column |
How a hobby farm taught me to set priorities in academia
With tenure and training, I learnt to say no to endless meetings and remake my academic career.
- Brandon Brown
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Comment |
Assessing social aid: the scale-up process needs evidence, too
When programmes expand, new complexities and indirect consequences must be studied.
- Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak
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Research Briefing |
Structure of wheat immune receptor helps guide design of disease-resistant varieties
When plants recognize disease-causing organisms, they activate immune responses through mechanisms that are poorly understood. Resolving the structure of a plant receptor-protein complex in wheat that detects fungus-derived molecules reveals that the corresponding receptor family is structurally conserved during evolution.
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Where I Work |
Cheers to the first beer made entirely from indoor hops
Ana Saez García uses hydroponics to grow the crop using barely any soil — and to boost its yield sustainably.
- Patricia Maia Noronha
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Correspondence |
Carbon farming: integrate biodiversity metrics
- Sylvain Coutu
- , Inbal Becker-Reshef
- & Loïc Pellissier
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Correspondence |
Agricultural sustainability in Chile’s proposed new constitution
- Andrés Muñoz-Sáez
- & Leah L. R. Renwick
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News |
Australia’s catastrophic rabbit invasion sparked by a few dozen British bunnies
Genome analysis shows that most Australian rabbits are descendants of wild rabbits shipped to near Melbourne in 1859.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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News |
Nuclear war between two nations could spark global famine
A pall of smoke from burning cities would engulf Earth, causing worldwide crop failures, models show.
- Alexandra Witze
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Nature Index |
Improving crop resilience with nanoparticles
Materials that can carry CRISPR gene-editing into plant cells could be key in the fight against global hunger.
- Neil Savage
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News & Views |
Low phosphorus levels limit carbon capture by Amazonian forests
Understanding the processes that affect carbon storage in tropical forests is crucial for assessing the effects of climate change. An experiment reveals that a nutrient shortfall is hampering such carbon capture.
- S. Joseph Wright
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News & Views |
The early arrival of spring doesn’t boost annual tree growth
Analysis of when and how fast temperate deciduous trees in North America grow suggests that the earlier onset of the growing season induced by climate change does not result in extra carbon sequestration from wood production.
- Cyrille B. K. Rathgeber
- & Patrick Fonti
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Where I Work |
Potato-gene wrangler
Hugo Campos develops resilient, high-yield crop varieties to battle food insecurity.
- Virginia Gewin
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News & Views |
From the archive: freezing food, and science for medical students
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Article |
A receptor–channel trio conducts Ca2+ signalling for pollen tube reception
The molecular mechanism by which FERONIA, LORELEI and NORTIA work together to facilitate calcium-mediated synergid–pollen tube communication in flowering plants is presented.
- Qifei Gao
- , Chao Wang
- & Sheng Luan
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Where I Work |
Improving livestock to fight poverty and empower women
Doreen Anene works to boost the quality of hens’ eggs and inspire girls to study science.
- Nic Fleming
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Correspondence |
Strengthen biosecurity when rewiring global food supply chains
- Alec P. Christie
- , David C. Aldridge
- & William J. Sutherland
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Correspondence |
Nigeria’s policymakers must prioritize One Health
- Tariq Oluwakunmi Agbabiaka
- & Madinat Abimbola Abdulkareem
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Book Review |
How the peanut trade prolonged slavery
The legume’s history in West Africa is intimately linked with conquest.
- Amy Maxmen
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Article
| Open AccessGenome evolution and diversity of wild and cultivated potatoes
High-quality diploid assemblies of potato genomes from 24 wild and 20 cultivated potatoes provide insights into the complex evolution and diversity of potatoes, and could have applications in the breeding of hybrid potatoes.
- Dié Tang
- , Yuxin Jia
- & Sanwen Huang
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News |
Gene-edited tomatoes could provide new source of vitamin D
Plants rich in a precursor to the vitamin could help to address deficiencies — but face a long road to market.
- Heidi Ledford
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News |
Eating one-fifth less beef could halve deforestation
Model suggests that switching to microbial ‘meat’ can cut carbon emissions.
- Giorgia Guglielmi
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