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Cornell scientists breed vegetables for our changing environment

"The future of agriculture is certainly going to look different," says Michael Mazourek, assistant professor at the School of Integrative Plant science at Cornell. "Every growing season now is looking different than the last. A lot of the stability we've counted on has looked different. People are increasingly concerned about all the synthetic inputs that are going in."



Mazourek and his team breed plants using cross-pollination, something bees do naturally in the garden, but he does "with more guidance, more direction." They then combine the strengths of different vegetables to get the best of each, aiming to help crops resist diseases and make them better able to withstand changing climates. The Cornell team plants hundreds of the experimental crosses each summer and keeps seeds from the best-of-the-best in a cataloged library, which lets Mazourek look back at the evolution of each harvest to understand the changes, adapt different plants and create forward progress.

Read more at NBC News
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