ETH News

Plants with multiple sets of chromosomes have advantages over their relatives with a double set. But why they often start out infertile was only partially understood. Biologists at ETH Zurich have now discovered a new reason for the initial difficulties.

We can transition to pesticide-free agriculture without converting to organic farming. Robert Finger outlines the advantages and challenges involved.

New study estimates that natural forest recovery could capture approximately 226 Gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon, but only if we also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving these results requires community-driven efforts to conserve and restore biodiversity.

Forests renew themselves naturally. There has been very little research into how exactly this happens – until now. Researchers at ETH Zurich and WSL have set themselves the task of solving this puzzle.

Increasing summer heat and drought are affecting European forests – some years, trees brown prematurely and some even start to die back. Researchers from ETH Zurich and the WSL are showing how exceptional weather conditions over several years are turning forests brown.

In the Forest Laboratory "Waldlabor" on Hönggerberg, ETH Zurich researchers investigate the storage and transport processes of water in the forest. Recently they showed that forest-floor litter and deadwood have a far larger influence on the forest water balance than expected.

Efforts to restore degraded ecosystems have so far fallen short of meeting global targets. Sound restoration must better incorporate social processes promoting equity in order to effectively benefit people, climate and biodiversity, says Sara Löfqvist.

Until now, mountain regions have been largely spared from biological invasions. But a new monitoring study shows that alien plants are spreading rapidly to higher altitudes along transport routes worldwide.

ETH Zurich researchers have been able to show which genes inhibit self-fertilisation in grasses. Plant scientists can now use this mechanism in a more targeted way to breed new varieties of forage grasses as well as rice or barley.

Researchers from ETH Zurich are studying how alpine vegetation is responding to a warming climate – and how some plant communities are continuing to stand firm against newcomers from lower elevations.

A team of researchers from ETH Zurich and WSL travelled to Svalbard this summer to take a closer look at the phenomenon of Arctic greening. Lead principal investigator Sebastian Doetterl discusses research in the face of polar bears, airline strikes and war.

Researchers from ETH Zurich, the United States and Uganda have identified the gene responsible for resistance in certain cassava cultivars against the devastating cassava mosaic disease. This is an important step for breeding virus-resistant cassava varieties.

Biodiversity is beautiful, but it’s also vitally important. ETH researchers are getting to the heart of how species diversity and genetic diversity evolve – and why we must fight to preserve them.

For Achim Walter, it’s time we take responsibility for what we eat. As consumers, we have a right to demand a food system that serves the environment, promotes health and protects those in less affluent circumstances.

In the video series "Ask the Expert", experts from ETH Zurich answer questions from the community. In this episode Bruno Studer talks about molecular plant breeding.

Today, molecular genetic methods can be used to breed sustainable crops - such as multinutrient rice. Researchers are calling for the risk of new plant varieties to be assessed not on the basis of the breeding method, but on the basis of their characteristics.

What holds true for meadows would seem to apply to arable land, too: mixed cultures are more fruitful than monocultures. This was the outcome of an ETH Zurich research project led by Christian Schöb.

Evolution never stops – and disruptions can speed up the process. Now ETH researchers are delving deeper into the secrets of evolutionary change.

An extraordinary year is drawing to a close. ETH News takes a look back at the highlights that emerged amidst difficult and unsettling times, at ingenious ideas, fascinating science and solidarity in action during – and despite – the coronavirus pandemic.

When it gets warmer, organisms rise higher from the lowlands. Researchers from ETH and WSL investigated what could happen to plant communities on alpine grasslands if grasshoppers from lower elevations settled there.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have identified a self-regulating mechanism in European deciduous trees that limits their growing-season length: Trees that photosynthesise more in spring and summer lose their leaves earlier in autumn.

The warm, dry summer of 2018 has left clear traces in various ecosystems. ETH Zurich researchers have found that if the climate continues to warm up, higher altitudes can also expect negative consequences in the future.

Biologists have known for some time that RNA interference can silence genes in far-off cells. They suspected that a messenger substance “transmits” RNA interference. Now, ETH researchers have definitively shown that these messengers in plants are short double-stranded RNA fragments.

Venus flytraps are known for the fact that their catching leaves close in a flash when unsuspecting prey touch highly sensitive trigger hairs twice in a row. A team of researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich has now discovered a new snap mechanism.

To Achim Walter it’s clear: the budding artificial intelligence will decisively advance agroecology. But before we can harvest the fruits of AI, computers still have a lot to learn.

Soya and clover have their very own fertiliser factories in their roots, where bacteria manufacture ammonium, which is crucial for plant growth. Although this has long been common knowledge, scientists have only recently described the mechanism in detail. With biotechnology, this knowledge could now help make agriculture more sustainable.

Planting a trillion trees is just one part of a broader solution to help fight climate change. Thomas Crowther argues for a holistic and principled approach to reforestation and cutting carbon emissions.

With the advent of smart farming, agriculture has now entered the era of big data. Drones, robots and intelligent imaging should soon be boosting farmyard efficiency and sustainability. Switzerland’s characteristic smallholdings could be one of the chief beneficiaries.

ETH researchers are involved in the development and implementation of a method to efficiently breed for disease-resistant beans in different regions of the world. Their work will help to improve the livelihood and food security of smallholders in developing countries.

ETH researchers have discovered Boletus edulis (porcini mushrooms) growing at an elevation of over 2,400 metres in the Lower Engadine – the highest altitude ever recorded for these popular edible mushrooms in the Alps. Moreover, the mushrooms have “hooked up” with a new plant partner that was not on their list of possible symbionts to date.

The idea of living on the Moon, Mars or an even more distant planet has long captured our imagination. When facts are in short supply, fiction thrives – but science fiction has a habit of eventually becoming science fact.

The current episode of the ETH Podcast is about a researcher who wants to develop an ecosystem for astronauts on a space station or inhabitants of a Mars base.

Agricultural technology doesn’t have a good reputation. And yet, developed intelligently, it’s the key to enhancing sustainability and biodiversity in agriculture, says Achim Walter.

Due to digitisation, ecologists are working less and less in the field. Christoph Küffer believes that we should not rely solely on digital data, and puts the case for field research.

Wilhelm Gruissem argues that modern, effective breeding methods are needed to make our agriculture more ecologically friendly and resilient.

Using the famous CRISPR-Cas9 gene scissors, plant biotechnologists at ETH Zurich have been able to improve cassava. The new variety has amylose-free or ‘waxy’ starch, which is preferred for applications.

Climate change is bringing with it not only drier summers, but warmer springs too. This causes trees and shrubs to bud earlier, making them vulnerable to late frost, as ETH forest scientists have now proven.

Where and how we cultivate our crops has always been a matter of dispute – and is today more relevant than ever. But there will be no easy answers in the foreseeable future, says Achim Walter.

We need to seize the opportunity for a unified global response to deforestation, land degradation, and climate change, says Jaboury Ghazoul.

Yams are tuber crops and an essential staple food in West Africa. But the traditional cropping systems are unproductive and degrade soil. The YAMSYS project seeks to change this in cooperation with local actors working along the yam value chain.

This summer, environmental scientists were studying individual leaves to understand how trees balance their use of light, water and nutrients, and how this affects the CO₂ uptake of entire forests.

ETH researchers have developed a new rice variety that not only has increased levels of the micronutrients iron and zinc in the grains, but also produces beta-carotene as a precursor of vitamin A. This could help to reduce micronutrient malnutrition, or «hidden hunger», which is widespread in developing countries.

Spines and thorns keep hungry mammals at bay – or at least, that's the conventional wisdom. However, ETH researchers have now shown that spiky growths on plants make life difficult for caterpillars too. This finding could be important for crop breeding.

What will it take to make our agroecosystems more diverse and secure? Take buckwheat, for example – an ancient grain-like plant with considerable potential. It's not related to cereals, yet produces storable seeds and can taste anything from deliciously tart to bitter.

From the wealth of agricultural biodiversity in Switzerland, only a few old fruit and vegetable types find their way to the major distributors. However, these old crops could help overcome the genetic bottleneck in farming.

If degraded and logged areas of tropical forests are left to nature, the populations of certain endangered tree species are not able to recover. This applies in particular to trees with large fruit where the seeds are distributed by birds, as ETH scientists have shown in a rainforest in India.

How the differences between the sexes evolve depends not only on which parts of the genome are sex-specifically active. The question also arises concerning the sex in which such changes take place. ETH researchers demonstrate this using a closely related pair of plants.

In the midst of today’s organic food boom and romantic glorification of nature, plant breeding is in a difficult position: one often forgets that we as humans owe our very survival to the supply of food. Almost nothing that we eat today was originally found in the natural world.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have produced starch in yeast - the first time this has been achieved in a non-plant organism. The new model system now makes it easier for them to investigate how starch is formed and what role is played by the enzymes involved. In future, it may be possible to use yeast to trial specific modifications of starch.

People began to domesticate wild plants more than 10,000 years ago. Since then, we have been breeding crops in order to make them more resistant and to increase yields. New techniques now make it possible to modify genetic material precisely, which raises questions that our society must discuss and try to answer.

Plant scientists at ETH Zurich have recently celebrated a world first at the ETH Zurich’s research station in Lindau-Eschikon: the launch of the ETH Field Phenotyping Platform (FIP), a unique crop phenotyping system. This gives researchers an incredibly accurate tool for measuring and monitoring the health and performance of field crops.

The Seychelles archipelago in the western Indian Ocean is home to the Coco de Mer, a legendary palm tree that grows the biggest seeds in the world. These have been highly prized for centuries and still are popular tourist souvenirs today. But can the Coco de Mer flourish in the face of adversity?

On 10 and 11 March, a delegation of board members and researchers from South Africa visited ETH Zurich. ETH News spoke to two researchers who have been working together for more than 10 years: Jens Kossmann, Director of the Institute for Plant Biotechnology at Stellenbosch University, and Samuel Zeeman, Head of the Group of Plant Biochemistry at ETH Zurich, explain what goes into making a collaboration across 10,000 km successful.

Wild bees pollinate our crops, and in doing so produce much of the food on which the world depends. But the destruction of their natural habitats, mostly due to agricultural spread and intensification, means we are losing these valuable insects. Promoting beekeeping to compensate for the loss of wild pollinators is not a straight forward solution, however.

“It’s complicated…”, or at least “it’s more complicated than you think“. Our opinion on issues, from the futile to the most pressing, tends to be based on an illusion of understanding [1]. We think we know, and this entitles us to take action. But it’s actually more complicated than you think.

Researchers in Zurich and Cologne have collected a large number of bacterial strains that live on plants. The collection marks the beginning of a promising new field of research. Scientists can now systematically perform targeted laboratory investigations into how bacteria promote the growth and health of plants.

Plant scientists have engineered the cassava plant to produce higher levels of vitamin B6 in its storage roots and leaves. This could help to protect millions of people in Africa from serious deficiencies.

The building permit has been issued: ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the Canton of Zurich have permission to build the Agrovet-Strickhof, a jointly operated agricultural education and research centre in Eschikon Lindau. Research director Carla Soliva and IT director Hans-Rudolf Wettstein are here to share their thoughts on the planned buildings and the opportunities for livestock research.  

Since the dawn of human civilization, trees and forests have provided us with food, resources, and energy. And humans often have a strong sense of connection with trees – we display an affection and tenderness for them. But the history of human development is also one of forest loss and transformation.

Scientists from ETH Zurich have developed a thermometer that is at least 100 times more sensitive than previous temperature sensors. It consists of a bio-synthetic hybrid material of tobacco cells and nanotubes.

Phosphor spielt als Pflanzennährstoff eine zentrale Rolle für die Landwirtschaft. Durch eine zielgerichtete Züchtung könnten Pflanzen den vorhandenen Bodenphosphor besser nutzen. Doch es gibt auch innovative Strategien um das Phosphorrecycling zu verbessern.