Zea is a genus of flowering plants in the grass family. The best-known species is Z. mays, one of the most important crops for human societies throughout much of the world. The four wild species are commonly known as teosintes and are native to Mesoamerica.
From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Shorter, sturdier corn stalks mean less crop lost to wind and storms before it ever reaches the c...
If you grow vegetables in urban or former industrial soil, this points to a future where a seed t...
If you grow corn in a backyard plot or just like tracking how a local farm's crop is doing, these...
If you're growing corn, or any vegetable, in soil that gets too dry or has lingering contaminatio...
If you've ever grown corn and watched it topple over mid-season, the culprit is often stalk rot, ...
If you've ever watched corn wilt in a hot dry spell or struggle in salty garden soil near a road,...
Every article on Plant News that mentions a member of this genus, newest first.
Scientists analyzed the microbial communities living inside a worm-compost-based fertilizer capsule and linked specific bacteria and fungi to healthier early growth in maize seedlings. The data shows which organisms make vermicompost such an effective, natural plant booster.
If you garden near old industrial land, roadsides, or anywhere soil might carry heavy metals, this combination offers a...
If you garden on salty or compacted soil, this is a reminder that amendments like biochar or compost don't work the same way...
The maize, cotton, and cowpea varieties being debated in these policy fights eventually shape what seed options and food...
Shorter, sturdier corn stalks mean less crop lost to wind and storms before it ever reaches the combine, which is why plant...
The banana peels and corn husks you toss in the compost bin could someday be processed into filters that pull lead and arsenic...
If you grow corn, sunflowers, or fruit trees, understanding when this pest is actually dispersing versus just stirring in a...
If you've ever grown tomatoes, potatoes, or rice-adjacent grains, this review shows the same disease families, late blight,...
The corn in your garden and the bok choy or canola on your plate both descend from ancient genome mergers, and understanding...
If you've ever watched a vigorous plant quietly choke out its neighbors in a garden bed, you'll recognize the logic here:...
If a stray gene can make wheat and maize fight off fungal disease without sacrificing growth, that's a step toward fewer...
If your garden soil is on the acidic side, this study shows that pairing a mineral amendment like lime with organic matter...
If you compost or garden with livestock manure, this study shows why heat-treating organic waste before spreading it matters...
The crumbly, well-structured soil that lets water soak in and roots breathe depends on bacteria that herbicides can quietly...
If you've ever watched a plant struggle in salty coastal or over-fertilized soil, this points to a living, natural fix: fungi...
If you garden on old industrial land or near a busy road, this points to a soil amendment that could keep cadmium and lead out...
If you grow vegetables in urban or former industrial soil, this points to a future where a seed treatment, not just soil...
If you grow corn in a backyard plot or just like tracking how a local farm's crop is doing, these same prediction methods are...
If you're growing corn, or any vegetable, in soil that gets too dry or has lingering contamination, the same stress-fighting...
The corn in your garden or the fields you drive past could one day handle dry spells better, thanks to a built-in molecular...
If you've ever skipped a gardening workshop but gladly took advice from a neighbor who actually grows what you grow, this...
If you've ever grown corn and watched it topple over mid-season, the culprit is often stalk rot, and this research points...
If your tomato plants have ever shown stunted growth and knotty roots, root-knot nematodes are likely the culprit, and this...
If you've watched corn in a garden or field wilt during a dry spell, this points to a specific genetic dial breeders could...
If you've ever watched corn wilt in a hot dry spell or struggle in salty garden soil near a road, this review explains the...
If you've ever worried about contaminated soil near old industrial sites or mines, this points to a cheap, plant-based fix:...
The way a corn plant angles its leaves and roots in response to gravity determines whether a packed field of crops stands tall...
The corn, wheat, and animal feed grown near you can harbor invisible mold toxins that this pocket-sized sensor catches in real...
If you grow or store your own corn, the mold that produces aflatoxins thrives in warm, damp conditions exactly like a poorly...
The tomato plants wilting on your patio and the wheat in nearby fields both rely on the same calcium-triggered alarm system to...
The bread wheat or cornmeal in your pantry depends on root partnerships with fungi and bacteria that are now being engineered...
If you've ever seen streaky, stunted corn leaves in a garden or roadside field, that's this virus at work, and it's a reminder...
The corn in any summer garden plot got its traits from exactly this gene-shuffling process, and learning to steer it means...
If your garden soil packs down hard or drains poorly, a small dose of fungus-fermented plant waste worked into the soil could...
Corn in a backyard bed gets dappled shade from neighbors, passing clouds, and swaying leaves all day, and this work shows the...
The corn stalks in a summer garden wilt and stall when rain stops, and the gene switches found here point toward varieties...
The soil microbes around your garden plant roots aren't interchangeable: one species may unlock phosphorus, another may feed...
Roots that keep pushing downward through dry spells are what keep a corn patch, a sunflower row, or any thirsty garden crop...
The plump kernels on a sweet corn or popcorn plant in your garden depend on a hidden chemical buffer that keeps the...
The corn, sorghum, and sugarcane growing along field edges and in community gardens already have a quick-reset light shield,...
Every sweet corn, popcorn, or heirloom flint kernel variety you plant traces back to gene shuffling in meiosis, and knowing...
The orb weavers and wolf spiders patrolling your garden edges are free pest control, and this study shows even a scruffy...
The soil microbes clustered around a corn root aren't the same ones covering the leaves or hiding inside the cob, and two of...
If you've ever watched your vegetable garden wilt during a dry spell, this points to a living soil ally that could help...
The tomatoes and beans wilting in your garden during a dry spell are fighting back with the same flavonoid defenses this...
If you grow sweet corn in a backyard plot, a speaker that mimics bat calls could one day keep borer moths away without a...
If you compost or amend garden beds, this shows how farm byproducts most people toss out can be turned into a microbial soil...
If you've ever added compost or biosolids to improve tough soil in a garden bed, this shows that how you manage water...
The corn towering in fields near you could soon be bred to stand more upright for tighter rows, but this research shows that...
The corn stalk in your garden or the field you drive past hides a tiny, tucked-away growth tip that decides how many ears,...
The corn on your dinner plate could get more abundant not through new genetics but through a simple chemical spray that lets a...
The corn that gets knocked flat in a summer storm isn't just an eyesore in a field you drive past, it represents lost food and...
The corn in your garden or the field you drive past doesn't just add up stresses like cold snaps and salty soil, it rewires...
If you've ever struggled with salt-damaged soil near a driveway or coastal garden bed, this points toward a future seed...
The corn in your garden or the field down the road is targeted by this exact pest, and this discovery could make a...
The corn growing in home gardens and farm fields relies on genes like this one to release invisible chemical alarms that...
The tomatoes and corn you rely on for dinner could soon need less fertilizer while shrugging off drought and pests, thanks to...
When your garden soil gets waterlogged after a heavy rain, the roots sitting in low oxygen are relying on this exact molecular...
If you compost or use manure-based amendments in your own vegetable beds, this study is a reminder that a fertility boost and...
The tomatoes ripening on your vine and the rice on your plate both depend on these microscopic protein-folding helpers to...
The corn and wheat fields you drive past could someday need far less irrigation and fertilizer, cutting runoff into local...
The wheat crackers or cornmeal in your pantry can pick up this estrogen-mimicking mold toxin during storage, and understanding...
If you've ever watched tomato or squash plants wilt during a dry spell, this points to a low-cost trick, root-friendly fungi,...
If you compost or amend garden beds with biochar, this points to a low-cost way farmers could soon produce it from crop...
If you've ever wondered why a bagged 'beneficial fungi' soil product didn't seem to do much in your garden, this points to the...
If you've ever watched a struggling tomato plant wilt during a heat wave, this research points toward seed treatments that...
The soil under a diverse backyard vegetable bed or crop-rotated farm plot is quietly doing you a favor by keeping...
If you've ever wondered why a heavily fertilized garden bed sometimes struggles in a dry spell, this study shows the soil...
The same corn and soybean oil that dominate industrial ICU nutrition are grown in the vast monoculture fields you might drive...
If you grow sweet corn in your backyard or watch it in nearby fields, this disease-causing bacterium has been quietly...
The wild variation you see in heirloom corn kernels or the sudden color changes in your garden flowers can trace back to this...
If you've ever added a humic acid soil booster to your vegetable beds, the real payoff is happening underground in root...
If you garden in poor, rocky, or mountain soil, this shows how the right soil microbes can unlock nutrients already trapped in...
If you garden near old industrial sites, roadways, or areas with heavy fertilizer or sludge use, a simple gypsum soil...
The sweet corn or dent corn you grow owes its fat, well-filled ears to a tiny DNA switch that wild teosinte, corn's scraggly...
If you grow tomatoes or peppers through a brutal summer, the same heat-stress biology this review untangles (wilting, stalled...
If you've ever added compost or mycorrhizal inoculant to give your garden a boost, this points to an even earlier...
The sweet corn in your garden and the field corn feeding livestock down the road both depend on breeding tools like this one,...
The starch in your kitchen pantry, whether scraped from a potato or milled from corn or mung beans, behaves completely...
If you're gardening near an old industrial site or busy roadway, this study is a reminder that pairing crops with...
If you've ever driven past a scarred, rusty-looking mine site and wondered if it could ever be green again, this research...
If you've ever wondered why some drought-tough plants in your garden wilt dramatically while others just quietly power...
If you've ever wondered why some corn struggles after a late frost while other stalks push through fine, this study shows the...
Soil that looks perfectly healthy on the surface can still be hosting microscopic worms quietly chewing through roots, which...
If you've ever watched a garden bed near a driveway or coastline struggle after road salt or seawater intrusion, this modeling...
If you've ever wondered how researchers forecast whether a drought will devastate rice paddies in Bangladesh or wheat fields...
The broadleaf weeds choking out your soybean patch aren't losing by accident: they're being crowded out precisely because they...
The wheat and corn fields feeding your community rely on root hairs you'll never see, and breeding crops that grow better ones...
If you've ever wondered why some regions struggle to grow food reliably, this shows how a country's water infrastructure, not...
Every leaf in your garden hosts an invisible community of bacteria, and this study shows the plant's own day-night rhythm...
The corn silage filling silos on dairy farms this fall could soon pack more vitamin C and protein into every bite, meaning...
The corn stalks and cobs typically burned or left to rot after harvest can instead be turned into a soil additive that helps...
The compost pile in your backyard runs on the same principle these researchers just mapped in detail: specific bacteria show...
The corn in a Midwest field that keeps growing through a dry summer may owe some of that resilience to a small set of genes...
If you've ever watched tomatoes wilt in a summer dry spell, this points to a gene that could someday get bred or engineered...
The tomatoes that stop setting fruit during a heat wave and the lettuce that bolts in July are both hitting the same internal...
If you've ever watered a garden bed near a driveway that gets road salt runoff, this is the same stress crops face, and it...
The corn in fields you drive past every summer relies on an internal switch that decides when to stop fighting drought and...
If you garden near old industrial land, railway tracks, or a former orchard where lead arsenate was once sprayed, the microbes...
If you're growing vegetables in a raised bed near an old road or building where lead in the soil is a real worry, this points...
If you've ever wondered why lakes near farmland turn green with algae some summers, this study points to a fix: coated...
If you've ever wondered whether solar panels and food crops have to compete for the same land, this study shows a...
The tomatoes that stop setting fruit during a summer heatwave in your backyard are responding to the exact same molecular...
The compost and fertilizer you spread this spring don't stop affecting the atmosphere when the growing season ends; nitrogen...
The corn seedlings pushing up in fields and gardens this summer got their fast start from a molecular switch that decides how...
The husk on the popcorn kernels you save for next season or the sorghum in your pantry isn't just packaging, it's a physical...
If you've ever watched the same crop thrive in one garden bed and flop in another, this study shows breeders can actually...
If you grow food in soil near old roads, industrial sites, or painted structures, this shows a practical, low-cost way to lock...
If you grow food in soil near old industrial sites or busy roads, this kind of amendment shows a low-cost way to keep heavy...
If you garden in sandy soil that drains fast and eats through fertilizer, this research shows exactly how much biochar to mix...
If you're amending contaminated or heavy-clay soil with biochar and worm castings to build carbon and structure, this study...
The corn in your summer garden bed doesn't fail gradually as the air dries out; it holds on fine until a specific dryness...
As summers get hotter, the corn in fields you drive past could increasingly struggle to survive heat waves during critical...
The premium camellia oil you might buy for cooking or skincare is a common target for cheap oil substitution, and this new...
The wheat, rice, and barley fields that make up most of the world's calories could become more drought-tolerant if breeders...
The tomatoes and rice on your plate could soon come from plants engineered to survive the salty, drought-prone soils that...
Corn planted in your community garden or small farm patch is vulnerable to pest damage that can wipe out a crop before you...
Cheaper, faster defect detection in grain harvests means fewer moldy or damaged kernels slipping into the food supply, which...
Lambsquarters, pigweed, and foxtail crowd your vegetable beds for the same reason they swamp cornfields: farmers haven't had a...
If your garden soil has ever been near old paint, plumbing, or urban fill, the same organic amendments you'd make from kitchen...
If you've watched a raised bed or border planting slowly decline from salty irrigation water or road-spray creeping in from a...
Adding biochar to your garden soil isn't a one-size-fits-all fix; the material it's made from decides whether your plants...
If you've ever amended garden beds with charcoal or compost, this study shows that biochar made from an unlikely waste product...
Compost made from animal waste has long been a gardener's staple, but processing that waste with heat and pressure into...
Corn's architecture — how tall it grows, how its leaves angle, where the ear sits — directly shapes how densely farmers can...
Corn fields facing back-to-back drought and disease pressure could one day carry crop varieties bred from these exact gene...
The scent your corn plants release on a warm evening after a caterpillar chews a leaf is quietly recruiting bacteria in the...
Corn varieties farmers grow today took decades of careful breeding to perfect, and until now, adding a new trait meant...
Rotating tobacco with corn while pulling back on fertilizer rebuilds the hidden fungal networks in farm soil that keep crops...
The wheat, corn, and rice feeding most of the world rely on invisible microbial communities in the soil to survive dry spells,...
Peach orchards and corn plots across Asia are being bored apart by a moth whose larvae tunnel directly into fruit and ears,...
Corn breeders now have a streamlined playbook for snipping out traits like susceptibility to drought or disease, compressing...
Corn breeders now have a detailed technical playbook for editing specific traits, like drought tolerance or disease...
Soil near old plumbing, industrial sites, or heavily fertilized gardens often carries copper loads that silently suppress...
Getting the rotation right in your vegetable garden — not just planting more or fertilizing heavier — can simultaneously...
Every kernel of wheat, grain of rice, and ear of corn that survives a dry summer does so partly because of an invisible waxy...
Seed developers can stabilize a new corn variety in two seasons instead of six using haploid induction — and decoding the...
If you've ever wondered whether the scrubby lot next to a gas station or old factory could ever grow food again, this study...
Corn and wheat quietly defend themselves from insects and fungi using built-in chemical shields that scientists can now...
Every time you grow the same crop in the same garden bed year after year, you're quietly loading the soil with microbes that...
Corn ears that fail to pollinate — a common sight after a cold snap, drought, or missed planting window — don't just sit...
Fuel pumped at your local gas station could one day come from a grass crop that thrives on marginal land with little water —...
Corn breeders using these methods could develop varieties that hold up better in your region's shifting rainfall patterns —...
Every ear of corn you've ever shucked exists because ancient farmers gradually coaxed a scraggly wild grass into a crop — and...
Sorghum is the drought-tough grain quietly holding food security together across the driest farming regions on Earth, and...
If you've ever added compost or kelp meal to your garden beds and wondered whether the microbes you're feeding are actually...
If you grow sorghum, finger millet, or pearl millet in a dry-summer garden, you're already working with crops that shrug off...
Rice paddies already stressed by shifting monsoons could stay productive longer if breeders activate this newly mapped...
Mulberry trees planted alongside food crops in contaminated garden soil can act as a living filter — but the cultivar you...
Biodegradable plastics marketed as eco-friendly mulches and bags don't disappear cleanly — in farm soils already treated with...
Rice paddies feed half the world on shrinking water budgets — and this single gene edit quietly reshapes the leaf cells that...
Compost-style soil amendments made from farm waste could be a low-cost, practical tool for smallholder farmers and market...
Knowing which compost or soil amendment actually suits your specific garden bed — sandy, clayey, or loamy — could double your...
Corn fields near you may soon be treated with enzyme sprays instead of chemical pesticides — a shift that protects the living...
The soil left behind by last season's corn crop isn't neutral ground — it's a microbial legacy that can either prime or dampen...
Staple crops like potatoes, corn, and rice are being quietly rewritten at the molecular level so their starch digests more...
When your tomatoes or fruit trees branch poorly or show yellowing leaves despite fertilizing, the culprit could be a...
If carrageenan soil amendments scale beyond the lab, the vegetables grown near industrial zones — the fields closest to where...
Every time you compost spent corn stalks or straw back into your garden beds instead of bagging them, you may be doing more...
If you mulch your vegetable beds with plastic sheeting and compost straw or plant debris back into the soil, you may be...
If you grow corn, tomatoes, or heavy-feeding vegetables, a dilute organic liquid amendment — even a byproduct most factories...
Every bee that visits a corn tassel in a treated field is picking up whatever chemicals traveled from the soil into that...
Corn and sorghum fields baking under record summer heat may have a hidden ally in their own soil — root bacteria that dial up...
Every bag of fertilizer you pour on your garden represents mined phosphorus, a finite resource we're burning through faster...
Every stress response your tomatoes show — wilting, yellowing, that sudden bolt to seed — is driven by hormone signals this...
If you've ever tried growing vegetables in compacted, alkaline, or brackish soil and watched them wilt despite watering, this...
Corn, sugarcane, rice, and wheat share a chemical alarm system that a common soil fungus can exploit to steer the stem-boring...
Corn silk is more fragile than it looks — a week of dry heat at the wrong moment shrivels it before pollen can land, and...
Compost and garden soil increasingly contain microplastics from mulch films, plastic-wrapped produce, and synthetic textiles —...
Drought hotspots in the central US, eastern Brazil, and South Asia are already quietly shrinking the harvests of staple grains...
The angle at which roots dive into soil determines whether a plant survives a dry summer or starves in a thin topsoil — and...
Battery recycling facilities and landfills quietly leach metal cocktails into nearby soils, and the vegetable patch or...
Corn bred to carry more protein without shrinking its yield could quietly shift the nutritional baseline of hundreds of foods...
Farmers growing the alfalfa, corn, and pecan crops that feed your region's food supply are being squeezed by droughts that...
If you grow tomatoes, potatoes, or grapes in your backyard and something starts going wrong with the leaves, a tool like this...
Every corn plant in a field quietly runs a molecular immune system shaped by millions of years of co-evolution with viruses —...
Corn fields on former industrial sites or heavily fertilized soils can quietly accumulate toxic zinc levels — understanding...
The corn in your grocery store—and the tortillas, cornbread, and animal feed it becomes—could stay productive through the...
Planting climbing beans next to your corn patch can feed the soil, crowd out weeds, and put more food on your table without...
The soybeans, corn, and edamame at your grocery store are increasingly threatened by soil pathogens, and this research shows...
The invisible fungal threads laced through your vegetable garden soil are actively recruiting and organizing the bacteria that...
The corn in your grocery store and the staple food keeping millions of East African families fed is under serious threat from...
Corn on your dinner table — whether eaten directly, used in tortillas, or fed to livestock — can silently carry a fungal toxin...
A natural plant extract could help the corn in drought-stressed farming regions stay productive longer — meaning more food...
Armyworms devastate corn crops worldwide, and this research reveals exactly how the worst offender — the fall armyworm —...
The corn on your dinner plate could become harder to grow and more expensive as droughts intensify — but this natural gene...
The plastic fragments washing off your garden mulch, synthetic turf, or nearby roadway are silently accumulating in the root...
Cadmium from industrial runoff and certain fertilizers quietly builds up in agricultural soil and can end up in the corn you...
The corn on your dinner plate may contain less toxic cadmium because of invisible fungal threads in the soil — and this...
Corn bred to stay productive through a surprise cold spell and stretch scarce soil nutrients further could mean steadier...
Plastic mulch film and garden plastic debris breaking down in your vegetable beds is quietly reshaping the microbial ecosystem...
The corn in your grocery store could one day be grown with far less synthetic fertilizer because specific soil bacteria can...
The corn on the cob at your summer barbecue exists because breeders have spent decades coaxing maize plants to grow more...
Fall armyworm can wipe out an entire corn or vegetable garden in days, and knowing which insecticides still work — and which...
The rice, wheat, or corn in your pantry could soon be engineered to carry more iron, zinc, or vitamins — meaning everyday...
Microplastics breaking down in your garden soil are quietly strangling the beneficial fungi that help your vegetables absorb...
Salty, degraded farmland already threatens the food on your plate, and this fungus offers a natural, spray-on solution that...
Wheat, rice, and corn — the crops that make up most of your daily meals — could be engineered to survive longer dry spells,...
Fertilizing degraded sandy land to grow more food can quietly undermine the soil's own nutrient-recycling microbes, meaning...
Cheaper, more nutritious corn at the grocery store gets closer to reality as farmers learn to grow crops that find their own...
Every hybrid seed packet you buy—whether for corn, canola, or sunflowers—exists because breeders exploit this exact...
Early spring cold snaps paired with dry conditions are a leading cause of corn crop losses, and understanding how corn defends...
Tweaking how a plant senses light and heat could lead to tomatoes, rice, and wheat varieties that grow better in changing...
Crops most vulnerable to drought — maize and sorghum — are staple foods for millions of people, and understanding which plants...
Same fungi attacking lab crops also threaten the wheat in your bread, the rice in your pantry, and the corn at your farmers...
Grains that make up most of the world's food supply — wheat, rice, corn — could be engineered to use less water and survive...
Same gene that tells a plant how to keep growing and regenerating itself could soon help scientists breed more...
Bread, rice, and corn on your plate could soon come from crops engineered to survive the hotter, drier growing seasons that...
Nitrogen washing off farms into rivers and lakes is what causes the toxic algae blooms that choke fish, foul drinking water,...
It points toward a way to grow more food with less synthetic fertilizer — meaning cheaper, more sustainable farming that's...
Drought is one of the biggest threats to corn harvests worldwide, and this discovery points to a specific genetic lever that...
It means that what you grew in your garden or farm field last season could be quietly sabotaging what you're trying to grow...
Understanding exactly how corn and other grass crops regulate water loss through their leaves could lead to drought-resistant...
Understanding what lives in the root zone of corn — one of the world's most important food crops — could lead to biological...