Agriculture and forestry

Ten thousand years ago, the modern bread wheat Triticum aestivum was created, which today provides one fifth of the calories and proteins consumed by people worldwide. Through selection and breeding, countless varieties have been created which are adapted to regional environmental and climatic conditions and have a higher performance. However, wheat yields have been stagnating for some years now. Climate change and the increasing demand for more sustainable forms of agriculture present breeders with new challenges.

Plants once created the oxygen atmosphere of our planet and still do so today through photosynthesis: An average tree releases around 120 kilograms of oxygen into the air every year. However, the plant cells themselves must also be supplied with oxygen. However, there are areas where the opposite is true, as an international team of plant researchers has now discovered.

Parsley is one of the most popular culinary herbs. It is rich in essential oils and vitamin C and is ideally suited for refining salads and savoury dishes. But the herbaceous plant is currently causing gardeners problems: it will not grow. Plant virologists from the Leibniz Institute DSMZ - German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH in Braunschweig - have now found the cause.

Nano-carriers that are loaded with active substances and release these straight to the diseased cells are already in use in cancer medicine. Now this "magic bullet" could soon also cure plant diseases. A team led by Frederik Wurm from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI) has been working for several years on establishing this treatment method for diseased vines.

Chemical herbicides have long been the panacea against unloved plants in the field. However, the use of pesticides such as glyphosate has long been controversial and the consequences for the environment - especially biodiversity - are alarming. In addition to new resistant plant varieties, researchers are therefore working on new technologies to counteract the trend with environmentally friendly methods.

The varroa mite is the greatest threat to the western bee (Apis mellifera). The tiny parasite Varroa destructor feeds on its body fluid and attacks larvae in the hive, damaging its offspring and causing entire hives to die. "After about 18 months after the first infection, a hive is dead if nothing is done about it," says Dr. Stanislav Balouchev of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. Together with Katharina Landfester, the researcher hopes to use smart technology to protect bees from this scourge.

The potato is the third most important cultivated plant in the world and several thousand varieties have emerged since the beginning of its cultivation. And yet it is a "problem child" for plant breeders, as its biological properties do not make it easy for them: the potato's genetic material is tetraploid, which means that there are four copies of each gene, each of which can be different. It is difficult to tell which version - or even which combination of versions - promises the best properties for the plant.

Plant pests and infectious diseases destroy large parts of agricultural harvests every year. The losses would be even greater if there were no chemical-synthetic pesticides. But they also have their downsides: “Too high a dosage can lead to contamination of the groundwater and deterioration in soil fertility," explains Frank Ewert, Scientific Director of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF).

Many countries have already put the bioeconomy on the political agenda to drive social and economic change in the country. According to a study by the Bioeconomy Council, an advisory body to the German government, 49 countries - including Brazil - have launched bioeconomy programmes to date. International cooperation is becoming increasingly important on the road to a bioeconomy.

Many regions of the world's oceans are overfished. For some fish species, studies predict population collapse within the next 30 years. At the same time, fish and seafood are the staple foods in many regions, and demand continues to be high across the globe. Aquafarms, in which fish or seafood is bred, are therefore becoming increasingly important. However, the efficiency of aquafarm rearing is poor. A German research cooperation now wants to change this.