Latest Plants News
AP PHOTOS: Hurricane Helene inundates the southeastern US
Tangled piles of nail-spiked lumber and displaced boats littered the streets. A house lay crushed under a fern-covered oak tree toppled by the winds. Residents waded or paddled through ruddy floodwaters, hoping to find their loved ones safe, and rescue crews used fan boats to evacuate stranded...
Takeaways on AP's story about challenges to forest recovery and replanting after wildfires
The U.S. is struggling to replant forests destroyed by increasingly intense wildfires, with many areas unlikely to recover on their own. Researchers are studying which species are likely to survive — and where — as climate change makes it difficult or impossible for many forests...
As many forests fail to recover from wildfires, replanting efforts face huge odds -- and obstacles
BELLVUE, Colo. (AP) — Camille Stevens-Rumann crouched in the dirt and leaned over evergreen seedlings, measuring how much each had grown in seven months. "That's two to three inches of growth on the spruce,” said Stevens-Rumann, interim director at the Colorado Forest Restoration...
Brewing a cold beer on a warming planet is hard. Germany uses education to fight climate change
MUNICH (AP) — The keys to combating the climate change that's wreaking havoc on Germany's beer industry could lie inside a plant nursery — nicknamed "our kindergarten" — at the Society of Hop Research north of Munich. The 7,000 seedlings there are a mix of new varieties that...
In Ohio, drought and shifting weather patterns affect North America's largest native fruit
WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio (AP) — Stubborn drought in Ohio and the shifting weather patterns influenced by climate change appear to be affecting North America’s largest native fruit: the pawpaw. Avocado-sized with a taste sometimes described as a cross between a mango and...
US company accuses Mexico of expropriating its property on the Caribbean coast
MEXICO CITY (AP) — An American quarry company said Tuesday the Mexican government carried out a de facto expropriation of its properties on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Mexico's Interior Department issued a decree late Monday declaring the firm’s seaport and quarries to be a...
Volunteers help seedlings take root as New Mexico attempts to recover from historic wildfire
A small team of volunteers spent a few hours scrambling across fire-ravaged mountainsides, planting hundreds of seedlings as part of a monumental recovery effort that has been ongoing following the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history. The Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon...
Brazil drought punishes coffee farms and threatens to push prices even higher
CACONDE, Brazil (AP) — Silvio Almeida’s coffee plantation sits at an ideal altitude on a Brazilian hillside, whose clay-rich soil does well at retaining moisture from rainfall and a nearby reservoir. Lately, though, water is scarce on Almeida's modest farm in Caconde, a town in...
US agency review says Nevada lithium mine can co-exist with endangered flower
RENO, Nev. (AP) — U.S. land managers said Thursday they've completed a final environmental review of a proposed Nevada lithium mine that would supply minerals critical to electric vehicles and a clean energy future while still protecting an endangered wildflower. “This...
An ancient African tree is providing a new 'superfood' but local harvesters are barely surviving
Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet. The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now. Climate change-induced...