Scientists seek help from wheat’s wild cousins to sustain high yields
In the year 2014, when Jammu and Kashmir was facing one of its worst floods, a group of researchers from the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) and Punjab…
Plants News
Citizen science project records shoots and leaves to understand climate change
A school teacher in Meghalaya spent the last four days of his holidays travelling around 30 villages looking at trees. Resly Roy Pariong was scanning trees in backyards, gardens and…
Assam’s rhino habitat overtaken by invasives
On a gloomy afternoon in May 2018, conservation biologist Bibhab Talukdar was visiting Pobitora National Park in Assam. As he rode an elephant into the grasslands at the core of…
A women’s squad in Odisha defends its forest for 20 years
For close to 20 years after a supercyclone ravaged Odisha, a group of women along the coast has been standing sentinel over their beloved storm-shielding forest and mangrove cover. Deftly…
Invasive plant species are creeping into Kerala after the floods
Siam weed (Chromolaena odorata), a commonly seen plant in Kerala, is locally known as “Communist Pacha (green)”, as it spread all over the state within a short span of time just like Communism…
India reports to the Biodiversity Secretariat that it is on track to achieve its targets
Seventy women from three villages in Assam mobilised and sensitised over 10,000 people for protecting the endangered greater adjutant stork and its supporting habitat in their villages. Their efforts highlight…
All creatures great and small: Best of Almost Famous species 2018
The year 2019 is here, and with it there is a general feeling of excitement, which we all feel when something is "new". Before the feeling gets old, let's take…
Tussles between plants and their enemies drive forest fragment diversity
Very few tropical forests around the world enjoy uninterrupted contiguity. Most are divided into uneven, small fragments, cut off from each other, their boundaries marked by roads or farms. But as…
As forest lines invade mountains globally, Sikkim stays immune so far
In eastern Himalayas’ Khangchendzonga National Park (KNP), eye-catching Wight's rhododendron shrubs and graceful firs, frame the upper limits of the sub-alpine forests. Beyond this boundary of closed canopy forests, called…
Can we bank on seed banks? Priority should be to conserve natural habitats, feel experts
India which has “great expertise” in conservation of genetic resources of crop plants through seed banking is now “rapidly” working to extend the safeguards to difficult-to-conserve (recalcitrant) seeds of wild…
