Plants make seeds that can grow into new plants, but if the seeds just fall to the ground under the parent plant, they might not get enough sun, water or nutrients from the soil. Because plants ...
Plant propagation is the process of increasing the number of plants of a particular species or cultivar. Propagation can be via sexual or asexual means. Over the years, horticulturalists have ...
Sexual reproduction is a way of making a new individual by joining two special sex cells, called gametes. In the sexual reproduction of animals and plants, the male and female gametes join to ...
An interactive showing the main components of the terrestrial nitrogen cycle. Select one of the buttons to find out more.
Scientists divide plants into two main groups depending on whether they reproduce by seeds or spores. Plants that reproduce by seeds Seed plants have special structures on them where male and ...
Flowering plants need to get pollen from one flower to another, either within a plant for self-pollination or between plants of the same species for cross-pollination to occur. However, pollen ...
Just as we have essential needs for our growth, plants also have essential needs for their survival. These include: sunlight air water nutrients appropriate temperature. As long as plants have ...
Humans have many reasons to grow plants. We use them for food, for building materials, for pleasure and for many other purposes. A plant really just has one reason to grow – to reproduce and make ...
This interactive illustrates a technique used by scientists to generate transgenic plants.
All tea is made from the leaves of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. Six main types of tea are produced – white, yellow, green, oolong, black and post-fermented. Each type of tea has a unique ...
Dr Mark Goodwin of Plant & Food Research explains how flowering plants use self-pollination or cross-pollination in their reproduction. He uses kiwifruit and avocado as examples to show how ...
Breeding a new apple cultivar takes a long time and involves many steps. The aim is to produce high-quality fruit that consumers will like and want to buy. Breeding apples to increase quality The ...
Dr Mark Goodwin of Plant & Food Research explains what artificial pollination is and why it is needed for kiwifruit. Some work of the company PollenPlus is shown, including their QuadDuster ...
An inquiry approach is a method often used in science education. The question bank provides an initial list of questions about pollination and places where their answers can be found. The article ...
Getting good crops of avocados in New Zealand is not always easy, and pollination is part of the problem. The avocado is a fruit tree introduced to New Zealand from Central America. It likes warm ...
Find out how and why a red-fleshed apple variety is being bred in New Zealand, and discover how genetic information, consumer research and sensory science are all involved. Red-fleshed apples – ...
Information about apple genetics is helping breeders at Plant & Food Research in New Zealand to breed new apple cultivars faster and more efficiently. Selectively breeding new apple cultivars ...
What do soil, farming and science have to do with each other? Actually, they are inextricably related. For centuries, humans have used science to improve soil productivity and crop yields. The ...
What usually happens when you cut up a piece of fruit to eat or to put in a salad? If it is an apple, a pear, a peach or a plum, you probably cut out the seeds and put them in the compost bin ...
Farming is a way of life in New Zealand. Farms cover about half of the country’s land and are important to our economy. Agriculture has shaped who we are as a nation, but it has also had a big ...
Dr Selai Letica explains the process of denitrification. This is the phase of the nitrogen cycle where nitrate is converted back to atmospheric gaseous nitrogen (N2). Jargon alert: Dinitrogen is ...
Flowers are not on plants just to make them look pretty. They are there as a vital part of a flowering plant’s life cycle. Not all plants have flowers, find out what flowering plants are and how ...
Next time you eat a kiwifruit, cut it in half and look at it before taking a bite. Look for the little seeds – most kiwifruit have about 1,000, so you can’t miss them. To get seeds in a ...
At Zealong, they propagate new tea plants using cuttings to ensure genetic consistency and consistency in taste and quality. It takes 3–4 years from taking the cutting until the plant is mature ...
