Old Man Winter’s coldest months are a boon to New Hampshire growers interested in adding spinach to their winter crop. Researchers at the NH Agricultural Experiment Station have found that spinach grown in high tunnels during the coldest months of winter has the highest sugar content.

Scientists from the University of New Hampshire have unlocked a major genetic mystery of one of the ancestors of cultivated strawberry. A genetic analysis conducted by New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station researchers, which took four years to complete, aims to improve modern cultivation efforts of strawberry growers.

Each year, Americans use more than 100 billion plastic bags, most of which are thrown away and end up in landfills or on the side of the road. As a result, local, state, and national governments are working to reduce plastic bag waste, with approaches ranging from supporting recycling efforts and using compostable bags to levying taxes and outright banning the use of plastic bags.

One of the most challenging aspects for any scientist is successfully explaining to lay audiences with little or no scientific background the details and importance of complex research. Recently, two graduate students with the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture excelled at just that, and in under three minutes.

University of New Hampshire scientists are one step closer to being able to predict when oysters in the Great Bay Estuary may be at risk of being infected with a bacteria that has sickened consumers throughout the Northeast.

Soil microorganisms play a critical role in the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, which is a central factor in climate change. University of New Hampshire scientists have received $1.7 million in federal grants as part of an effort to better understand the physiology and genetics of these soil microbes, how human activity is altering them, and the implications for the global climate.

More whites died than were born in a record high 17 states in 2014 compared to just four in 2004, according to new research from the Carsey School of Public Policy and supported by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of New Hampshire. Some 121 million people representing 38 percent of the U.S. population reside in these states: California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Arkansas, Delaware, Nevada, Maine, Alabama, Connecticut, New Mexico, West Virginia and Rhode Island.

While scientists and policy experts debate the impacts of global warming, the Earth’s soil is releasing roughly nine times more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than all human activities combined. This huge carbon flux from soil, which is due to the natural respiration of soil microbes and plant roots, begs one of the central questions in climate change science. As the global climate warms, will soil respiration rates increase, adding even more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and accelerating climate change?

Lesley Atwood, a doctoral candidate in agroecology at the University of New Hampshire, will discuss the opportunities and unintended consequences of managing agricultural soil food webs at NOFA-NH Winter Conference, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017.

Preliminary research results from the University of New Hampshire show that certain tree species in New Hampshire fared better at the height of the 2016 New England drought and were able to continue taking up water even when soils were very dry.