Startup helps farmers grow plant-based feed and fertilizer using wastewater
Founded by former MIT Tata Center translational research director Jason Prapas, Fyto has built an automated system for harvesting the aquatic plant Lemna on dairy farms.
Will the vegetables of the future be fortified using tiny needles?
Researchers showed they can inexpensively produce silk microneedles to deliver vitamins or agrochemicals to plants.
For plants, urban heat islands don’t mimic global warming
Scientists have found that trees in cities respond to higher temperatures differently than those in forests, potentially masking climate impacts.
SMART researchers pioneer nanosensor for real-time iron detection in plants
The innovation enables nondestructive iron tracking within plant tissues, helping to optimize plant nutrient management, reduce fertilizer waste, and improve crop health.
3 Questions: Exploring the limits of carbon sequestration
Assistant Professor César Terrer discusses pioneering volcano research to track carbon dynamics in tropical forests.
Pivot Bio is using microbial nitrogen to make agriculture more sustainable
The nitrogen product developed by the company, which was co-founded by Professor Chris Voigt, is being used across millions of acres of American farmland.
A new method to detect dehydration in plants
Sensors developed by SMART researchers are capable of detecting pH changes in plant xylem enable farmers to detect drought stress up to 48 hours before visible physical symptoms manifest.
Advancing urban tree monitoring with AI-powered digital twins
The Tree-D Fusion system integrates generative AI and genus-conditioned algorithms to create precise simulation-ready models of 600,000 existing urban trees across North America.
Study: Marshes provide cost-effective coastal protection
As climate change accelerates sea-level rise and intensifies storms, marsh-fronted seawalls can provide an economical coastal defense, MIT engineers report.
Teen uses pharmacology learned through MIT OpenCourseWare to extract and study medicinal properties of plants
Inspired by traditional medicine, 17-year-old Tomás Orellana is on a mission to identify plants that can help treat students’ health issues.
Plant sensors could act as an early warning system for farmers
Sensors that detect plant signaling molecules can reveal when crops are experiencing too much light or heat, or attack from insects or microbes.
Study finds lands used for grazing can worsen or help climate change
Too much livestock on a given amount of land can lead to carbon losses, but appropriate numbers can actually help sequester the carbon.
MIT researchers remotely map crops, field by field
The team used machine learning to analyze satellite and roadside images of areas where small farms predominate and agricultural data are sparse.
Building a better indoor herb garden
Randall Briggs ’09, SM ’18 created the GardenByte indoor herb garden to grow crops three times faster than they would outdoors.
How to tackle the global deforestation crisis
Vital forest is cleared every day, with major climate effects. Satellites have revolutionized measurement of the problem, but what can we do about it?