Science In Your Shopping Cart

ARS researchers Nancy Keim and Wally Yokoyama are looking to turn wine waste – mainly pomace or what the researchers call marcs – into healthy food products that end up in our shopping carts.

Keim is studying the health benefits of combinations of chardonnay grape pomace and chardonnay grape extract.  As expected, the enriched flour is high in fiber and has a lot of bioactive material, which means it will react favorably w...

ARS researcher Kerri Steenwerth, a research soil scientist with the Crops Pathology and Genetics Research Unit in Davis, CA, battles weather extremes and ways to keep wine grape growers ahead of the environmental curve. 

Her research involves regenerative viticulture practices, which is similar to regenerative farming, or farming with sustainability and the environment in mind. Regenerative farming focuses on building and ...

ARS researcher Lance Cadle-Davidson, a research plant pathologist at ARS’s Grape Genetics Research Unit in the finger lakes region in Geneva, NY, is helping protect wine vineyards that produce European style wines in the U.S.  Cadle-Davidson and his team have created an automated process utilizing high resolution cameras with illumination to see fungal disease easily from LED lighting with artificial intelligence to quanti...

ARS researcher Bradley King, a research agricultural engineer at ARS’s Northwest Irrigation and Soils Research lab in Kimberly, ID, is utilizing AI technology to help wine growers determine the best times to water their vineyards.  King and his colleagues developed a validated, automated model that uses artificial intelligence to remotely calculate the daily crop water stress index so wine growers know when to water their ...

ARS researcher Bill Kustas, a Research Hydrologist and Distinguished Senior Research Scientist at ARS’s Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory in Beltsville, MD, is part of a collaborative team called GRAPEX.  The GRAPEX research program involves using satellites and even unoccupied aerial vehicles to identify vine water use and stress throughout a vineyard. Growers can use these data to determine if certain areas are get...

ARS researchers are working with the National Grape Research Alliance (NGRA) to help wine grape growers adapt to ever-evolving weather patterns as well as extreme weather conditions.  Believe it or not, it may not be all bad.

One of the unintended consequences of shifting weather patterns is the ability of certain regions to produce grape varieties they’ve never been able to grow before. This is also creating a resurgence ...

ARS researcher Arran Rumbaugh, a research chemist at the Crops Pathology and Genetics Research Unit in Davis, CA, is studying how smoke from wildfires can affect the chemical composition of wine grapes.  

Wildfires from 2020 hurt wine grape production and had an estimated 3.7 billion dollars of economic impact on the wine industry due to smoke exposure and fire.   Dr. Rumbaugh is working on an early screening method that c...

ARS researchers work with the National Grape Research Alliance (NGRA) to initiate novel research projects and programs to solve industry challenges. And there’s no bigger challenge today than dealing with extreme weather and shifting weather patterns.  

Thankfully, ARS researchers are on the job, working with the NGRA to solve problems and find solutions in the areas that grape research is needed most.

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ARS researchers have been instrumental in developing cereal crops and enhancing food for the American people.

In this season of Science in Your Shopping Cart, we’re taking a trip down the cereal crop aisle, where we’ll dive into the challenges of growing popular cereal crops, explore the growing popularity of ancient grains, and taste a rice that’s fit for an emperor.

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ARS Research Geneticist, Dr. Dolores Mornhinweg at the Peanut and Small Grains Research Unit in Stillwater, OK is developing new Barley crop lines that are resistant to pests such as the Russian Wheat Aphid.

Barley is an important part of the U.S. economy, bringing in over a billions dollars in crop value.  The Russian Wheat Aphid is a major pest to barley production in the U.S.

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ARS research leader Shahryar Kianian and his colleagues at ARS’s Cereal Disease Lab in St. Paul, MN are leaning on the art of negotiation to help oat producers deal with a deadly disease, called Crowned Rust. 

Listen and learn how ARS is protecting oats, some of the healthiest grains you can put in your body. They are a great source of fiber, and they contain lots of vitamins and minerals, as well as antioxidants.

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Ancient grains refers to a category of grains – particularly pseudo-cereals – that possess a very unique health benefit that provide essential nutritional requirements for our health.  ARS Research Leader, Dr. Sean Liu at the Functional Foods Research Unit in Peoria, Illinois is researching ways to make ancient grains more nutritional, and he wants to make them more attractive to consumers.
 
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Corn is grown all over our planet and is an important crop in all parts of our lives.  ARS Research Entomologist, Xinzhi Ni at ARS’s Crop Genetics and Breeding Research Unit in Tifton, Georgia is looking at how corn plants get stressed, and how those stressors invite diseases and pathogens to proliferate inside the crop. Ni is hopeful their work will benefit future entomologists and breeders to find solutions to these pere...

Wheat is a big crop in the United States.  Stripe rust is one of the most important diseases for wheat.  ARS Research Plant Pathlogist, Xianming Chen and researchers with ARS’s Wheat Health, Genetics, and Quality Research Unit in Pullman Washington are testing and developing new varieties of wheat that are resistant to the crop’s major disease threats, including stripe rust.

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