- Author: Emily C. Dooley, UC Davis
Algorithm for AI enables low-cost tracking of invasive plant
To manage johnsongrass, a noxious weed that crowds out cotton and sickens horses, farmers have tried herbicides, burning and hand-pulling. Now, researchers at University of California, Davis, have developed a more high-tech weapon against the invasive weed: artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Using photos from Google's Street View database, UC Davis researchers have tracked down over 2,000 cases of johnsongrass...
- Author: Mike Hsu
Giving 1,200-pound cows access to one of California's most fragile and biologically rich ecosystems seems a strange way to protect its threatened and endangered species.
But a recently published study suggests that reintroducing low to moderate levels of cattle grazing around vernal pools – under certain conditions – leads to a greater number and greater variety of native plants.
“We found that after 40 years of rest from grazing, reintroducing conservation grazing had – across the board – positive impacts on vernal pool plant diversity,” said Julia Michaels, a visiting professor at Reed College who led a
- Author: Brad Hooker
Over the last three millennia, the practice of growing rice has evolved and spread throughout much of the globe. From China, through India, to Greece and parts of the Mediterranean and from Europe to the Americas, rice has demonstrated its versatility in desert regions and wetland deltas alike. Abundant in carbohydrates, it is today one of the world’s most widely eaten foods.
While University of California researchers develop rice varieties more tolerant to the modern challenges of climate change — flooding, heat stress, drought — California rice farmers each year discover more new threats in the form of non-native and herbicide-resistant weeds. So well adapted are these weeds that if left unmanaged, they...