News

February 27, 2025

Soilless growing systems inside greenhouses, known as controlled environment agriculture, promise to advance the year-round production of high-quality specialty crops, according to an interdisciplinary research team at Penn State. But to be competitive and sustainable, this advanced farming method will require the development and implementation of precision agriculture techniques. To meet that demand, the team developed an automated crop-monitoring system capable of providing continuous and frequent data about plant growth and needs, allowing for informed crop management.

January 24, 2025

Microorganisms collected from the material in which button mushrooms are grown may benefit the development of future fungi crops, according to a study led by researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

January 22, 2025

Several hundred bees in rural Pennsylvania and rural New York are sporting tiny QR codes on their backs to track when they go in and out of their hives. The work, a collaboration among entomologists and electrical engineers at Penn State, is the first step in solving a long-standing mystery of how far bees travel from their hives to collect pollen and nectar.

December 18, 2024

A concentrated sugar solution could be just as effective as antibiotics at treating a common infection in dairy cows, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State.

November 22, 2024

Pollutants known as “contaminants of emerging concern” or chemicals that could potentially harm human health and have been found in the environment, including pesticides, ingredients from personal care products, pharmaceuticals and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are increasingly found in streams and lakes. A team led by researchers at Penn State recently demonstrated the accuracy and utility of a new method to find even very low levels of these substances in surface waters. They reported their findings in the Science of the Total Environment.

November 19, 2024

Two best friends who met as undergrads at Penn State never knew how powerful their friendship could be until they joined together to form a Nittany AI Challenge team. With the continued support of the GeoEd Foundation and the Nittany AI Alliance they are developing Project Green Thumb, an application to help builders, homeowners, landscapers plant and maintain native, eco-friendly landscapes that support wildlife.

November 1, 2024

The latest episode of "Growing Impact" explores how a research team is using computer modeling and animations to visualize future flood and levee failure scenarios.

October 31, 2024

The Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences announced two new co-hires: Dana Calacci, assistant professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and Enrico Casella, assistant professor of data science for animal systems in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

October 25, 2024

One of the most traditionally time-consuming, labor-intensive processes of apple production is blossom thinning, which involves manually pruning flowers so that remaining blooms can reclaim the plant’s resources to grow better fruit. More recently, the process has shifted to broad chemical spraying, which can have harmful environmental impacts. To assist producers and mitigate environmental harm, the USDA has awarded a three-year, $601,125 grant to a team of Penn State researchers for the development of a robotic precision spraying system.

October 10, 2024

By combining the genetic sequencing and analysis of the microbes in a milk sample with artificial intelligence (AI), researchers were able to detect anomalies in milk production, such as contamination or unauthorized additives. The new approach could help improve dairy safety, according to the study authors from Penn State, Cornell University and IBM Research.

October 1, 2024

An approach called metagenomics — a type of DNA sequencing — may help scientists learn more about the microbes that affect plants, according to Penn State researchers.

September 24, 2024

Weeds are a major factor limiting yield in organic vegetable and other horticultural crop systems, and the lack of effective biological weed-management solutions is a significant obstacle to the adoption of organic farming practices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a four-year, $1 million grant to a team led by plant scientists and an economist from Penn State to investigate anaerobic soil disinfestation, a microbial-driven process to manage weeds, to support transitioning from conventional to organic production systems.

September 19, 2024

First used in the 1940s to monitor for polio, wastewater surveillance proved such a powerful disease monitoring tool that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established the National Wastewater Surveillance System to support SARS-CoV-2 monitoring in September of 2020. Now, a team of scientists from Penn State and the Pennsylvania Department of Health have shown that domestic sewage monitoring is useful for a foodborne pathogen as well.

August 26, 2024

Nitrate, a common chemical compound that occurs naturally and is found in plants, water and soil, can break down into molecules harmful to human, animal and ecological health and accumulate as a pollutant. Nitrate contamination in streams, lakes and estuaries is a critical problem in many agricultural watersheds, but water-quality data is limited, making monitoring stream health and making management decisions difficult, according to researchers at Penn State. To enhance available data, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded a four-year, $650,000 grant to a research team at Penn State.

August 22, 2024

A bottle of water sampled from a lake or river can reveal what fish, amphibians insects and bacteria are present, thanks to environmental DNA, the genetic material shed by organisms. This way of measuring transforms scientists’ ability to determine the extent of aquatic life in various water bodies, according to a team led by Daniel Allen, assistant professor of aquatic ecology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

August 21, 2024

Pesticides reduce crop loss, helping to stabilize production, but excessive use of pesticides has brought huge negative impacts to the environment and human health, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. To address the problem, a team of Penn State researchers is developing a robotic precision pesticide sprayer capable of targeted application while minimizing unintended exposure.

August 12, 2024

Because basic knowledge about the spotted lanternfly's biology remains limited, a team of Penn State researchers is collaborating with the Center for Quantitative Imaging to detail the spotted lanternfly's anatomy and physiology.

July 22, 2024

Cutting-edge technologies for agriculture and living systems will take center stage in the College of Agricultural Sciences Exhibits Building at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days, Aug. 13-15 at the Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs in Centre County.

July 18, 2024

As the number of major utility-scale ground solar panel installations grows, concerns about their impacts on natural hydrologic processes also have grown. However, a new study by Penn State researchers suggests that excess runoff or increased erosion can be easily mitigated — if these “solar farms” are properly built.

June 25, 2024

The availability and adoption of high-speed broadband appears to boost the number of farms offering agritourism activities, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers. Their findings, the researchers said, bolster the argument for expanding broadband availability in support of farm operators who want to benefit from the growing consumer interest in on-farm experiences.

June 10, 2024

Certain strains of bacteria can withstand heat treatments such as pasteurization of milk and possess the potential to induce foodborne illness. To help minimize and predict the magnitude of this risk, a team led by Penn State researchers developed a model that can guide processors to improve food safety.

May 21, 2024

Attendees from within and beyond the University recently convened at Penn State for the Technologies for Agriculture and Living Systems Symposium, where they had the opportunity to learn about current research, share ideas for collaboration, and grow networks.

April 12, 2024

A nationwide team of agricultural scientists, including researchers at Penn State, has launched a decision aid that provides an unbiased, science-based interpretation of soil test phosphorus and potassium values for crop fertilization, with an eye toward potentially saving farmers millions of dollars annually while reducing excess nutrient losses to the environment.

March 19, 2024

As climate change worsens global drought conditions, hindering crop production, the search for ways to capture and store atmospheric carbon causing the phenomenon has intensified. Penn State researchers have developed a new high-tech tool that could spur changes in how crops withstand drought, acquire nitrogen and store carbon deeper in soil.

February 28, 2024

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences invites collaborators from within and beyond the University to join it as it embarks on a new initiative focused on leveraging emerging and advanced technologies to support sustainable and resilient agricultural systems and the broader living systems that support them.

February 28, 2024

Spring frosts can have devastating effects on apple production, and a warming climate may be causing trees to blossom early, making them more susceptible to the damaging effects of extreme cold events. Growers’ attempts to prevent the flowers from freezing by attempting to heat the canopies of their orchards largely have been inefficient. To deal with the worsening problem, Penn State researchers devised a frost protection cyber-physical system, which makes heating decisions based on real-time temperature and wind-direction data.

February 27, 2024

TerraSafe has established a lab in State College and entered a licensing agreement with Penn State to commercialize sustainable packaging solutions developed by researchers at Penn State. The agreement is based on technologies invented by a research team led by Jeffrey Catchmark, professor of agricultural and biological engineering and of bioethics in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Catchmark and his team have worked for years developing technology that can replace conventionally used materials with those that are significantly more environmentally friendly.

December 7, 2023

In watersheds degraded by runoff of nutrients from farmland, land managers may struggle to pinpoint the best locations to install riparian buffer strips along streams or other pollution-reduction practices, but a new technology devised by Penn State scientists could potentially make the search for those sites easier and less expensive.

November 20, 2023

An international team of researchers that includes Penn State faculty has characterized the abundances and distributions of plant beneficial bacteria from soils collected across the globe — and modeled how climate change may impact their numbers in the coming century. They published their findings in Nature Food.

November 16, 2023

A new grant for more than $7 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture will fund an upcoming project led by Penn State researchers, who aim to develop new pest management tools for mushroom crops.