News

Mary Lu Arpaia and Eric Focht have bred avocado trees in association with the University of California, Riverside, for decades. In the video below, they describe their quest for a better avocado that resulted in the release this year of the Luna UCR™, a new variety that is the great-grandchild...

The newly release Luna UCR™ avocado offers consumers great flavor, a rind that turns a tell-tale black when ripe, while growers will benefit from a smaller tree size, allowing denser plantings for more efficient and safer harvesting.

Though prescribed burns reduce wildfire threats and even improve habitat for some animals, new research shows these fires also spread stinknet, an aptly named weed currently invading superblooms across the Southwestern U.S.

UC Riverside scientists have significantly advanced the race to control plant responses to temperature on a rapidly warming planet. Key to this breakthrough is miRNA, a molecule nearly 200,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Many Southern Californians plant trees prized for drought tolerance, but a new UC Riverside-led study shows that these trees lose this tolerance once they’re watered.

For decades, scientists have been stumped by the signals plants send themselves to initiate photosynthesis, the process of turning sunlight into sugars. UC Riverside researchers have now decoded those previously opaque signals.

Without clocks or modern tools, ancient Mexicans watched the sun to maintain a farming calendar that precisely tracked seasons and even adjusted for leap years.

Though it is disappearing, California’s official state grass has the ability to live for 100 years or more. New research demonstrates that sheep and cattle can help it achieve that longevity.

Researchers have identified a new reason to protect mangrove forests: they’ve been quietly keeping carbon out of Earth’s atmosphere for the past 5,000 years.

UC Riverside scientists have modified proteins involved in plants’ natural response to stress, making them the basis of innovative tests for banned pesticides and deadly, synthetic cannabinoids.

A UC Riverside-led team has learned what happens to the roots of rice plants when they’re confronted with two types of stressful scenarios: too much water, or too little. These observations form the basis of new protective strategies.

The worst fire impacts this year are predicted to hit Northern California’s higher elevation forests and Southern California’s chaparral-clad mountainous National Forest lands. To aid recovery, UC Riverside ecologists are collaborating with the US Forest Service to target these spots with new post-fire ecological restoration strategies.

A new UC Riverside study casts doubt on drought as the driver of ancient Mayan civilization collapse.

A $1.5 million emergency grant is enabling UC Riverside scientists to find plants impervious to a disease threatening America’s citrus fruit supply.

A team of researchers led by UC Riverside has demonstrated for the first time one way that a small molecule turns a single cell into something as large as a tree. For half a century, scientists have known that all plants depend on this molecule, auxin, to grow. Until now...

Scientists have figured out how plants respond to light and can flip this genetic switch to encourage food growth - even in the dark. The discovery could help increase food supply for an expanding population with shrinking opportunities for farming.

Seeds that would otherwise lie dormant will spring to life with the aid of a new chemical discovered by a UC Riverside-led team.

The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories.

UC Riverside ecologists are leading a $1 million plant protection project that will help Southern California’s tribal nations adapt to climate change.

As many gather for Earth Day 2021, A UC Riverside ecologist urges caution toward solar geoengineering, an increasingly popular solution to the climate crisis.