Consistent policy, not “patchwork” regulations, recommended for the coexistence of crops
Australian farmers face inconsistent guidelines when it comes to crop regulations across genetically modified (GM), organic and other crop frameworks, according to new research from the University of Adelaide.
University of Adelaide
Australian farmers face inconsistent guidelines when it comes to crop regulations across genetically modified (GM), organic and other crop frameworks, according to new research from the University of Adelaide.
“Even though different sectors in Australian cropping regulate coexistence of both genetically modified and organic crops, they do so in different ways,” says lead researcher Michail Ivanov, whose review was published in Griffith Law Review.
“For example, different standards or codes of conduct recommend different physical barriers or buffer zones between paddocks to prevent cross-pollination. Similarly, sectors have different thresholds for how much genetically modified material a farmer can have in their crop before it is considered organic, non-GM or otherwise.”
Currently in Australia, there is no overarching legal framework for the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops. Instead, regulation is left to industry, with various standards and codes applied differently across sectors.
“They apply in different ways, so the regulation is a bit of a patchwork quilt,” Ivanov explains.
As of 2025, Australia has approved five GM crops for commercial cultivation: cotton, canola, Indian mustard, safflower and bananas. Ivanov says this list has expanded over time and will likely continue to do so.
Some inconsistencies exist within the organic industry itself, where privately owned certifying bodies impose differing standards.
“This means that farmers, both organic and otherwise, cannot have the same expectations about whether their operations would meet a particular certification, such as being considered ‘organic’,” Ivanov says. “It’s difficult to appropriately regulate coexistence across all of Australian agriculture if there are inconsistencies within specific sectors.”
Ivanov’s paper revisits the high-profile 2015 court case Marsh v Baxter, in which an organic farmer sued his neighbour for negligence and nuisance after finding GM canola on his property. The Court ruled against the organic farmer. Ten years on, the case has left uncertainties about how similar disputes might be decided in future.
“It’s unclear how a case similar to Marsh v Baxter might play out,” Ivanov says. “The outcome related to its specific facts. It wasn’t a win for the GM sector, nor a loss for the organic sector. And, importantly, it’s remained part of the public consciousness.”
While current research suggests coexistence is possible, Ivanov notes that what “coexistence” means differs between articles, sectors and regulations. With genome edited (GE) crops nearing commercial cultivation, Ivanov says it is vital to reconsider Australia’s regulatory frameworks now before inconsistency between GM regulations extends to GE regulations.
“With the emergence of biotechnologies in agriculture such as genome editing, we need to think carefully about how we regulate existing and new crop types, and the implications for coexistence,” Ivanov says. “As cultivation expands, we must ensure these crops can reasonably coexist with others grown in Australia.”
The Federal Parliament is currently considering the National Organic Standard Bill 2024, which would create a national organic standard. Ivanov hopes this will bring greater consistency to organic regulation.
“Now is the right time to discuss coexistence, so the organic sector can decide how it wants to regulate it in a practical and reasonable way,” he says.
Journal
Griffith Law Review
Article Title
The infamous celebrities of Eagle Rest: regulating the coexistence of genetically modified and non-genetically modified crops in Australia ten years after Marsh v Baxter
Article Publication Date
18-Sep-2025
LEDs shed light on efficient tomato cultivation
For the first time, LED-based controlled agricultural methods matched the performance of traditional greenhouses for growing tomatoes in some ways, but with greater consistency
image:
The S-shaped growing path for the cherry tomato plants yielded more fruit for an equivalent volume, plus it reduces the time to harvest. ©2025 Yamori et al. CC-BY-ND
view moreCredit: ©2025 Yamori et al. CC-BY-ND
Researchers including those from the University of Tokyo have successfully grown large tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, both rich in nutrients, in tightly controlled environments where the light source was energy-efficient LEDs. Such methods were often limited by the types or sizes of plants that could thrive in such conditions. This feasibility study demonstrates the researchers’ method is suitable for urban environments, potentially even in space, and can offer food security in the face of climate change or extreme weather conditions.
Pizza, pasta, soup, salad, the tomato really is a versatile and delicious food crop. Its delicious and nutritious nature comes with a cost though; it has a very high demand for light, as well as water. While tomatoes grow well in some parts of the world, there are many regions where the local climate is not ideally suited to them, and with climate change exacerbating weather and the environment, having a way to improve yields or enable cultivation at all have long been sought. Greenhouses are the main method for creating a controlled environment suitable for growing crops, including tomatoes, but they have drawbacks and still rely on natural sunlight, which can be a limiting factor in some areas. If you’ve ever bought greenhouse-grown tomato soup in Iceland for example, you may have realized this all too well.
There has been some research and even agricultural use of artificial light plant factories (ALPFs), which are exactly what they sound like: fully controlled environments tailored to specific crops to maximize yields without compromising on other factors. These have a proven track record but require a lot of power to operate due in part to the lighting they require. A logical step is to use energy-efficient LED lights, which has been successful for certain crops such as leafy greens, but nothing more substantial. Spinach and lettuce are nice, but they’re no slice of pizza. Realizing this limitation, Associate Professor Wataru Yamori from the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Tokyo and his team decided to refine this concept to make it bear fruit.
“Plant factories are resilient to climate extremes such as droughts, floods and heat waves that increasingly disrupt traditional farming. They can be built in deserts, cities, or one day even in space. By bringing production closer to consumption, they help reduce both climate risk and food transport needs,” said Yamori. “For many years, people assumed that crops with relatively long cultivation periods that require high light intensity, such as large-fruited tomatoes, could not thrive under LEDs. Our earlier work proved that cherry tomatoes, and even edamame, could be grown in such systems. Testing large tomatoes was the next logical challenge, pushing the boundaries of what plant factories can do.”
The team did more than just change a few lightbulbs out for LEDs though. They firstly fit an enclosed factory space with the standard materials necessary for growing tomatoes, but introduced different lighting setups, both using high-efficiency LEDs, depending on which variety of tomatoes they were growing. Over the course of a year, they lit large-fruited tomato plants from above, coaxing them to grow straight upwards as you’d expect. But the second setup involved lighting smaller cherry tomato plants from either above or from the sides, in such a way that they grew upwards in an S-shape series of bends.
The larger tomato plants grew well but didn’t quite match the yields or sugar content when compared with greenhouse-grown plants, though they did have more vitamin C. As for the cherry tomatoes, these exceeded expectations, with similar yields to greenhouses but significantly higher quality. In addition, the S-shaped plants fruited sooner, further increasing yields.
“Our study demonstrates that large-fruited tomatoes, once considered too difficult to grow under artificial lighting, can be stably cultivated in a fully-enclosed LED plant factory. This marks a turning point as LED factories, usually thought suitable only for leafy greens, can also support demanding fruiting vegetables like tomatoes,” said Yamori. “At present, greenhouse-grown tomatoes still tend to be larger and sweeter. But LED-grown tomatoes offer improved consistency. They maintain stable quality year-round and are often richer in nutrients like vitamin C. With continued improvements, we expect factory tomatoes to match, or even surpass, greenhouse ones in taste.”
Of course, anyone who’s ever tried (and especially those who failed) to grow demanding crops like tomatoes knows all too well that there are many factors to control in order to cultivate them.
“Perhaps the biggest hurdle was optimizing the light environment. Large tomatoes need plenty of energy for both growth and ripening, and it wasn’t clear whether LEDs could provide enough. But balancing light, temperature, humidity and nutrients in a closed space required a great deal of trial and error,” said Yamori. “LED-grown tomatoes are likely to appear first in regions where traditional farming is difficult, or where transport costs are high. They also fit well with the idea of ‘local production for local consumption,’ something that could be harvested in the city and eaten fresh, without long supply chains. Costs are still a little higher, but as the technology spreads and renewable energy is integrated, prices will become more affordable.”
It may still take a while before your local salad bar grows its own crops, but the possibilities extend even beyond that.
“Vertical tomato farms in skyscrapers are not science fiction anymore. Pilot projects exist around the world, though mostly for leafy greens,” said Yamori. “With our results, it’s realistic to imagine tomatoes being grown in skyscrapers within 10 to 20 years, and even in experimental systems for growing fresh produce on the moon or Mars.”
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Journals:
Ningzhi Qiu, Hao Shen, Dan Ishizuka, Keisuke Yatsuda, Saneyuki Kawabata, Yuchen Qu, Wataru Yamori, “Harnessing LED Technology for Consistent and Nutritious Production of Large-fruited Tomatoes,” HortScience.
https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI18868-25
Hanaka Furuta, Yuchen Qu, Dan Ishizuka, Saneyuki Kawabata, Toshio Sano, Wataru Yamori, “A Novel Multilayer Cultivation Strategy Improves Light Utilization and Fruit Quality in Plant Factories for Tomato Production,” Frontiers in Horticulture.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fhort.2025.1633097
Tomoki Takano, Yu Wakabayashi, Soshi Wada, Toshio Sano, Saneyuki Kawabata, Wataru Yamori, “Sustainable Edamame Production in an Artificial Light Plant Factory with Improved Yield and Quality,” Scientific Reports.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-17131-w
Funding: This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (18KK0170, 21H02171, and 24H0227).
Useful links:
Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences - https://www.a.u-tokyo.ac.jp/english/
Crop Physiology Laboratory - https://park.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/yamori-lab/english-page.html
It’s subtle, but the LED-grown cherry tomatoes are slightly richer in color, which corresponds to their nutritional content. Compared to greenhouse-grown tomatoes, the LED-grown ones had 15% more sugars, 7% more vitamin C and 7% more lycopene.
©2025 Yamori et al. CC-BY-ND
Researchers with LED-grown tomato plants.
©2025 Yamori et al. CC-BY-ND
About The University of Tokyo:
The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 5,000 international students. Find out more at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @UTokyo_News_en.
Journal
HortScience
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Harnessing LED Technology for Consistent and Nutritious Production of Large-fruited Tomatoes
Article Publication Date
19-Sep-2025
China’s high-oil peanuts: Breeding breakthroughs and challenges
image:
Distribution and Genealogy of High Oil Peanuts in China.
view moreCredit: Dongmei Yin, et al
Peanuts are an important global oilseed crop, with China leading in production and consumption. High-oil peanut varieties, containing over 55% oil, offer notable economic and nutritional benefits. Agaonst this backdrop, in a new study published in Reproduction and Breeding, a team of researchers analyzed 238 such varieties across China, evaluating their agronomic performance, disease resistance, and genetic background.
“We found a notable trade-off: higher oil content often means lower protein levels, posing a challenge for breeders aiming to improve both traits simultaneously,” shares corresponding author Prof. Dr. Dongmei Yin from Henan Agricultural University. “Additionally, while many varieties showed resistance to major diseases like leaf spot, bacterial wilt, and rust, few exhibited high-level resistance.”
Meanwhile, six varieties demonstrated broad resistance to five common diseases. The high-oil varieties thrive best in specific regions of China, particularly Northern, Eastern, and Central China, as these areas provide ideal growing conditions with longer seasons, distinct seasonal changes, and nutrient-rich, well-draining soils that promote oil accumulation in peanuts. “We’ve found that local cultivation practices and generations of genetic adaptation have created varieties specifically suited to these regions’ unique environments,” says Yin.
Key parent varieties, such as Kaixuan 016 and CTWE, which have been instrumental in developing these high-oil traits were also identified. These varieties have developed novel germplasm with both high oil content and strong heritability, which has enabled the release of these superior varieties, including Luohua 21 (61.04%), Luohua 9 (58.33%), Luohua 15 (57.30%), Luohua 19 (56.50%), Luohua 1 (56.45%), Luohua 4011 (56.20%), Luohua 11 (55.70%), and Nongdahua 206 (55.60%).
“However, expanding genetic diversity through wild relatives and modern molecular techniques will be essential to overcome current limitations,” adds Yin.
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Contact the author: Dongmei Yin, College of Agronomy, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China, yindm@henau.edu.cn.
The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Journal
Reproduction and Breeding
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Comprehensive Analysis of High-Oil Peanut Cultivars in China: Agronomic Performance, Disease Resistance, and Breeding Insights.
SHAT2 gene positively regulates shattering and quality traits in rice
KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
image:
Fig. 1. Targeted mutagenesis of SHAT2, an AP2/ERF transcription factor, affects seed shattering and quality in rice.
view moreCredit: Qian Qian, et al
In natural ecosystems, the timely abscission of seeds in wild plants is a crucial adaptive trait that contributes to reproductive success, population renewal, and colony expansion. While rice varieties with strong resistance to seed shattering may have reduced yield losses during harvest, this characteristic is increasingly aligned with the requirements of modern agricultural practices. Therefore, enhancing the genetic resistance to seed shattering in rice is essential for ensuring stable yields and improving adaptability to mechanized farming.
Paving the way towards that goal, a team of researchers from China has successfully identified SHAT2, an AP2/ERF transcription factor that acts as a positive regulator of both seed shattering and seed quality in rice.
The team published their findings in the Journal of Integrative Agriculture.
“We are currently screening the transgenic library (Wuyunjing 7) generated through CRISPR-Cas9 technology for materials that may be associated with rice seed shattering and possess potential research value,” shares corresponding author Qian Qian, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at China National Rice Research Institute. “Several shat2 allelic mutants were identified by CRISPR-Cas9 technology.”
Notably, the shat2 allelic mutants exhibited impacts on seed shattering and grain quality, suggesting the substantial potential of SHAT2 for application in breeding rice varieties with desirable shattering characteristics and superior grain quality.
“We investigated the expression pattern of SHAT2 using real-time quantitative PCR and found that SHAT2 was expressed in various organs,” adds Qian.
The expression levels of most genes related to seed shattering and grain quality were down-regulated in the shat2 mutants, indicating that SHAT2 might control seed shattering and quality by regulating the expression levels of these related genes.
The authors recommend that future endeavors should involve a comprehensive analysis of the regulatory effects of SHAT2 on shattering and quality. Building on this foundation, the strategy for future studies will involve genetically engineering suitable shattering and high-quality rice germplasms/varieties centered around SHAT2
“By doing so, we can broaden the spectrum of rice genetic resources with suitable seed shattering and good grain quality traits, which are crucial for ensuring stable yields and compatibility with mechanized production,” says Qian.
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Contact the author:
#Correspondence Qian Qian, E-mail: qianqian188@hotmail.com;
Deyong Ren, E-mail: rendeyong616@163.com
The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Journal
Journal of Integrative Agriculture
Method of Research
News article
Subject of Research
Cells
Article Title
Editing of the APETALA2/ethylene responsive factor confers improvements in seed shattering and quality in rice
New study shows biochar’s electrical properties can influence rice field methane emissions
Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
image:
Biochar conductivity enhances methane generation in paddy soil by facilitating electron transfer mediated by dissolved organic matter
view moreCredit: Yufei Wu, Ting He, Chen Cheng, Bo Liu, Zhaofeng Chang, Wei Du, Hao Li, Peng Zhang & Bo Pan
A team of scientists has discovered that the ability of biochar to conduct electricity can significantly affect methane emissions from rice paddies, one of the largest sources of agricultural greenhouse gases worldwide.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, with more than 27 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide. Rice paddies, covering about 9% of global farmland, contribute nearly one-third of agricultural methane emissions. Scientists have long debated whether adding biochar—charcoal-like material made from plant matter—can help reduce or increase these emissions. The new findings, published in Biochar, shed light on why results have been so mixed.
Researchers at Kunming University of Science and Technology created biochar with different levels of electrical conductivity by adding graphene, a highly conductive carbon material. They then tested how these biochars affected methane production in rice soils under controlled laboratory conditions.
The results were striking: soils treated with highly conductive biochar produced up to 69% more methane than untreated soils. The key, the team found, was not changes in the types of microbes present, but rather faster movement of electrons—tiny charged particles that drive many natural processes. Biochar acted like an “electron highway,” allowing dissolved organic matter in the soil to transfer energy more efficiently to methane-producing microbes.
“Our study shows that the conductivity of biochar is a critical factor in determining its impact on greenhouse gas emissions from rice fields,” said co-author Dr. Peng Zhang. “This new understanding can help guide how biochar is designed and applied in agriculture.”
The researchers also used a chemical model of natural organic matter to confirm that biochar’s conductivity speeds up electron transfer in soil. Their work suggests that the physical properties of biochar, such as its surface area and conductivity, should be carefully considered before recommending it as a climate solution.
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Reference: Wu, Y., He, T., Cheng, C. et al. Biochar conductivity enhances methane generation in paddy soil by facilitating electron transfer mediated by dissolved organic matter. Biochar 7, 85 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42773-025-00478-8
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Media Contact:
Wushuang Li
liwushuang@vip.126.com
About Biochar
Biochar is the first journal dedicated exclusively to biochar research, spanning agronomy, environmental science, and materials science. It publishes original studies on biochar production, processing, and applications—such as bioenergy, environmental remediation, soil enhancement, climate mitigation, water treatment, and sustainability analysis. The journal serves as an innovative and professional platform for global researchers to share advances in this rapidly expanding field.
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Journal
Biochar
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Biochar conductivity enhances methane generation in paddy soil by facilitating electron transfer mediated by dissolved organic matter
