When a disease infestation in a field becomes visible to the naked eye, the infection has often already spread and caused damage. In addition, the symptom alone does not always make it clear which pathogen is involved and which therapy is therefore the most effective. The companies Ontera Inc. and BASF therefore want to speed up the process: They have agreed to collaborate on research into a portable system for the early diagnosis of plant diseases.

It belongs to the sunflower family, grows in Africa as a wild plant and is considered by many to be a weed: Vernonia galamensis, commonly known as ironweed. But the plant that can only grow along the equator has attractive properties: Its seeds contain a high proportion of unsaturated epoxidized fatty acids, which can account for up to 80% of the oil content in some Ethiopian species. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim an der Ruhr now want to produce special "green" plastics from this vegetable raw material.

Late summer is the time of the catsear, a herb that is often confused with the dandelion. Hypochaeris radicata, as botanists say, blooms bright yellow until late fall. Researchers from the University of Kiel have now taken a closer look at the journey of the herb's pollen and analyzed how it adheres at the various stations of its journey.