Author: Dee Shore

Dec 10, 2014

Making a Difference: Food production

The world population is projected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. Between now and then, we will need to produce more food than we have in the previous 10,000 years. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences faculty members are hard at work examining the critical questions and developing innovative solutions to the grand challenge of feeding the world. 

Dec 10, 2014

Improving the cassava plant

Cassava is Africa’s number two crop and a major source of calories for 700 million people, but it’s highly susceptible to pathogens such as cassava mosaic disease. With African colleagues and students, Dr. Linda Hanley-Bowdoin of NC State University’s College of Agriculture conducts basic research aimed at gaining a better basic molecular-level understanding of viruses and how they affect cassava. 

Dec 10, 2014

Steward of the Future: David Tarpy

“If it weren’t for honeybees and other pollinators, we wouldn’t have about a third of everything that we eat,” explains Dr. David Tarpy, a North Carolina State University entomologist. In this video, he explains his research on the genomics of honeybee queen development and their reproductive potential. It’s research with important implications for the future of food production. 

Dec 8, 2014

Mapping human disease: ‘Not all pathogens are everywhere’

Researchers at North Carolina State University have for the first time mapped human disease-causing pathogens, dividing the world into a number of regions where similar diseases occur. The findings show that the world can be separated into seven regions for vectored human diseases – diseases that are spread by pests, like mosquito-borne malaria – and five regions for non-vectored diseases, like cholera. 

Dec 1, 2014

New arboretum director named

Mark Weathington, a horticulturist with more than two decades of experience, has been named director of the acclaimed JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University. 

Nov 24, 2014

Changing nighttime temperatures present new crop production challenge

As nighttime temperatures rise faster than daytime temperatures, agricultural production faces a new challenge being explored by NC State University’s Dr. Colleen Doherty. Doherty, an assistant professor of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry, studies how plants perceive and respond to changing temperatures and other stressors that keep them from attaining optimal yields. 

Nov 21, 2014

NIFA chief delivers wide-sweeping seminar on challenges facing 21st century agriculture

Calling a booming world population “the mother of all wicked problems,” National Institute of Food and Agriculture Director Sonny Ramaswamy called upon an NC State University audience to press forward in their attempts to deliver on the promise of biophysical and social sciences in ensuring food security for a population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. 

Nov 19, 2014

Warmer temps limit parasites’ impact, boost pest populations

Climate change is expected to disrupt ecosystems by changing insects' and other organisms' life cycles in unpredictable ways -– and scientists are getting a preview of these changes in cities. NC State University research shows that some insect pests are thriving in warm, urban environments and developing earlier, limiting the impact of parasitoid wasps that normally help keep those pest populations in check. 

Nov 18, 2014

Something resistant this way comes: an insect mystery

In fall 2013, Dr. Dominic Reisig got a phone call from a farmer in rural Hyde County. The farmer was growing corn, and it was literally falling apart in the field. What was going on? Reisig, an entomologist at NC State University, is a sort of science detective who specializes in insects that pose a threat to crops. And the farmer had presented him with a mystery. 

Nov 14, 2014

Jeter’s home run: First outreach communications at NC State

By the time North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s first agricultural editor Frank Jeter died in 1955, his name was a household word, reflecting his success over four decades in helping people convert new knowledge into more productive farming and happier rural living. The NC State College of Agriculture and Life Science’s communications team celebrated Frank Jeter’s legacy this week, marking 100 years since his hiring in November 1914.