Celery Rose

After being picked, if given proper care, a rose might last about two weeks before wilting. Petal blight - the reason for wilting - is caused by invading fungal pathogens that produce a sugar alcohol called mannitol, which breaks down the flower's defense system. It turns out that the enzyme mannitol dehydrogenase, found abundantly in celery, improves the life of rose petals when the gene responsible for its production is spliced into the rose genome. North Carolina State's Dr. Dole and Dr. Williamson are leading the research aiming to create a hybrid rose that is more resistant to disease.

The roses won't smell or feel any different, the only thing that should change is their vase life. "This gene is naturally found in many plants, but it's uncertain whether the rose already has it," said Williamson. "If it does, it doesn't produce enough enzyme to help the plant fight against petal blight." The team is also studying the type of sugar-water mixture that would best suit the rose after being harvested.

Ultimately, they are hoping to double the survival time of your generic flower shop rose. This could have a huge impact on the flower industry, especially when you consider that 1.2 billion rose stems are sold within the USA annually.

Insects Trapped In Love

This love story between two invasive pests is set in the southern states, but most notably Texas. The cotton bollworm entered from Mexico around 1916 and within 20 years had spread to over 119 counties within Texas, infuriating farmers along the way. The adult is a small moth, but before reaching maturity it goes through three other stages of development: egg, larva, and pupa. The larvae have been described as being aggressive, occasionally carnivorous and are reported to even cannibalize each other. During the destructive larval stage it eats the maturing seeds within the cotton boll.

In the 1960s and 1970s chemical insecticides, including DDT, were used in an attempt to control their spread. The following decade ushered in a heightened interest in nonchemical pest control. After experimenting with hormone manipulation, the Texas Department of Agriculture came up with a romantic solution. Through the use of insect pheromones, researchers tricked male bollworms into mating with female budworms (another invasive pest). Since the different species had mismatched genitalia, upon mating the insects became locked together and died. Happy Valentine's Day!

Vertical Farming

Current demographic trends reveal that our population will jump another 3 billion people by 2050, at which point almost 80% of us will be living in urban areas. Assuming that we continue our traditional farming techniques, an area of land larger than the size of Brazil will be required to grow enough food to feed us all. The problem is that currently over 80% of the world's land suitable for growing crops is being used (Sources: NASA & FAO).

Columbia University microbiologist, Dickson Despommier believes that the solution to humanities newest predicament is the large scale introduction of vertical farming. Since mastering the art of growing food horizontally, we have sacrificed countless thriving ecosystems and replaced them with fields of crops. We protect ourselves from the elements by moving into cities and living in tall buildings, yet let our growing food fend for itself against flooding, droughts, and hurricanes. With our booming population it's high time to learn how to grow our food locally, in buildings within urban centers. Vertical farms offer the possibility of year-round crop production and the simultaneous repair of ecosystems as we gradually lose our reliance on horizontal farming. Also, let's not forget how this could decrease fossil fuel burning, which is needed to power tractors, plows, and various shipping methods.

Along with the benefit of no weather or insect related crop failures, vertical farms would eliminate agricultural runoff by recycling black water. They would also add energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals. Depending on the crop, 1 indoor acre is the equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more. Just consider that one 30 story building taking up an entire NYC block would feed 50,000 people per year. This means that 165 sky farms spread across the 5 boroughs would be enough to continuously feed all of New York. For more information visit The Vertical Farm Project.

How Do Ya Like Them Apples?

It might look like an ordinary apple from the outside, but it's far from it if you ask Swiss fruit grower Markus Kobert. The Redlove Apple is the product of 20 long years of cross-pollinating different apple varieties, including one that was pink fleshed and tasteless. The trees were grown in tunnels to avoid unwanted bee pollination. This natural breeding process involved no genetic modifications.

Needless to say, the cross-breeding experiment has already become quite a lucrative venture. Seed and sapling company Suttons purchased exclusive rights to sell the fruit trees in Britain, and saplings are being scattered all over European orchards to start mass production.

Tom Sharples, spokesman for Suttons, said 'This is the very first red-fleshed, fine-tasting apple in the world. It has a delicious sweet and tangy taste with a hint of berries to it if eaten raw and is also ideal for cooking.'

The apple of your eye doesn't just look pretty either; its antioxidant-rich flesh make it healthier to eat than the average apple. The trees, which let out a mesmerizing deep pink blossom in the spring, can be yours for £24.95 per sapling from Suttons.

Scientists Combat Hunger with Flood Resistant Rice

University of California-Davis professor Pamela Ronald has made a ground breaking discovery, that will have huge ramifications on the developing world. They have managed to breed a new, hardier type of rice, which may succeed in stopping millions of people from going hungry worldwide. About half of the world's population utilizes rice as a staple in their diet, and if massive flooding were to wipe out an area such as India's supply of rice, it would have catastrophic consequences on the lives of millions.

"People (in the United States) think, well, if I don't have enough rice, I'll go to the store," said Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at UC-Davis. "That's not the situation in these villages. They're mostly subsistence farmers. They don't have cars."

With the combination of rising sea levels, and the worsening of world weather patterns - flooding has become a major cause of rice crop loss. Scientists estimate 4 million tons of rice are lost every year because of flooding. That's enough rice to feed 30 million people.

Normal rice dies after three day of intense flooding - "They don't get enough carbon dioxide, they don't get enough light and their entire metabolic processes are thrown off. The rice plant tries to grow out of the flood, but when it does, it depletes its sugar reserves. It starts to break down its chlorophyll, important for photosynthesis. It grows really quickly, and then when the flood recedes, it just dies. It's out of gas."

So Ronald and her colleagues have spent the last decade working to find a rice strain that could survive flooding for longer periods of time. An associate of Ronald's named David Mackill, identified a flood-resistant gene 13 years ago in a low-yielding traditional Indian rice variety. He passed along the information to Ronald, who isolated the gene, called Sub1, and introduced it into normal rice varieties, generating rice that could withstand being submerged in water for 17 days.

The team relied on something called precision breeding, the ability to introduce very specific genes into plants without the associated baggage of other genes that might get passed along in conventional breeding. Using precision breeding, scientists introduced the Sub1 gene three years ago into test fields in Bangladesh and India. The subsequent rice harvests were a resounding success.

"The results were really terrific," said Ronald. "The farmers found three- to five-fold increases in yield due to flood tolerance. They can plant the normal way. They can harvest the normal way and it tastes the same. Farmers had more food for their families and they also had additional rice they could sell to bring a little bit of money into the household."

The potential impact is huge, and the researchers predict that this strain of flood resistant rice will be available to farmers in Bangladesh within the next two years. Because the plants are the product of precision breeding, rather than genetic modification, they are not subject to the same regulatory testing that can delay release of genetically modified crops. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conferred one of its highest research awards last December on Ronald, Mackill and Bailey-Serres for their work on submergence-tolerant rice.

But Ronald has no plans to stop discovering new ways to sontribute her scientific knowledge to the world.

"I feel a great sense of gratitude that I was able to contribute in this way," she said. "But the farmers have asked us, 'Can you develop varieties that are drought tolerant, salt tolerant? Can you develop varieties that are insect resistant?' There are always more things to work on."

Frozen Seeds

The Svalbard Islands, located 1000km north of mainland Norway, are home to the recently officially opened 'doomsday' seed vault, built 130m inside a mountain. This remote location was chosen due to its geological stability, making use of the surrounding permafrost as natural refrigeration to maintain optimal seed storing temperature.

The £5 million vault took 12 months to complete construction. The vault is designed to withstand all natural and human disaster. Eventually it will hold 4.5 million samples from more than 100 countries - an estimated total 2 billion seeds from around the world.

Many countries already have their own collections in national seed banks. If these seeds were lost, lets say due to an earthquake, they would essentially have a backup stash in Svalbard.

"With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization, " said Norwegian Prime Minister Jen Stoltenberg.