URBANA, Ill. – For many Americans, highly processed foods are on the menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Even when the raw materials – grains, for example – are high in vitamins and health-promoting phenolic compounds, processing can rob the final product of these nutrients. In a set of recent studies, University of Illinois scientists reveal what happens to cancer-fighting phenolic acids in corn when it is processed into cornflakes.

URBANA, Ill. - Today’s crop breeders are trying to boost yields while preparing crops to withstand severe weather and changing climates. To succeed, they must locate genes for high-yielding, hardy traits in crop plants’ DNA. A robot developed by the University of Illinois to find these proverbial needles in the haystack was recognized by the best systems paper award at Robotics: Science and Systems, the preeminent robotics conference held last week in Pittsburgh.

URBANA, Ill. – Organic farmers are part of the fastest-growing food sector in the United States, yet breeding efforts have lagged, leaving farmers with few options for seed. Scientists, led by a group from the University of Illinois, are teaming up with farmers across the region to develop and test new maize cultivars with the goal of bringing high-quality, diverse options to the organic marketplace. And now, interested farmers and members of the public can learn more during a series of “aMaizeing” field days and workshops.   

A longstanding internal grant program coordinated by the Office of International Programs (OIP) in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) is realizing its goal of facilitating international efforts and collaborations that ultimately benefit ACES while making impacts around the world.  

The international seed grants program was initiated in 2009. Each project is funded through the Arlys Conrad Endowment Fund.

URBANA, Ill. –The state of Illinois has released $10 million to University of Illinois Extension, including $8.35 million to match contributions from county boards.

Led by Senate members Scott Bennett (D-52) and Chapin Rose (R-51), legislators across the aisle worked with their caucuses, their leadership, the Illinois Department of Agriculture, and the Illinois Comptroller’s Office to ensure funding for the essential Extension programs that serve individuals, families, and communities in all of Illinois’ 102 counties.

URBANA, Ill. – As part of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Cochran Fellowship Program, the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory (IBRL) is hosting eight agricultural professionals from Ecuador for two weeks of training focused on the U.S. biofuel industry.

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URBANA, Ill. — A new lightweight, low-cost agricultural robot could transform data collection and field scouting for agronomists, seed companies, and farmers.

The TerraSentia crop phenotyping robot, developed by a team of scientists at the University of Illinois, will be featured at the 2018 Energy Innovation Summit Technology Showcase in National Harbor, Maryland, on March 14.

URBANA, Ill. - Research at the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory (IBRL) at the University of Illinois continues to improve the dry-grind process used to produce ethanol from corn.

“One of the major challenges in the dry-grind process is use of high corn solid loadings needed to achieve high ethanol concentrations and make distillation more economical,” says Vijay Singh, director of IBRL and a professor in the U of I Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

URBANA, Ill.  – Shelly Nickols-Richardson has been named Interim Associate Dean and Director of Extension within the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois.

“Dr. Nickols-Richardson brings a tremendous amount of administrative leadership experience to this role, which will serve well as she works closely with all of us to evolve the Extension enterprise to the next level of excellence,” says Kim Kidwell, dean of the College of ACES.