Iranian Agricultural Researchers Modify Native Grass

The effect of gamma rays on the improvement of turf features and drought tolerance in certain native genotypes of long grass’ is the title of the project that Rahim Amirikhah carried out in the form of a doctoral thesis.

Replacing common lawns with drought-tolerant native grasses is one of the important ways to reduce water consumption in urban green space.

Nevertheless, native species of grass do not have the desired beauty and in terms of appearance quality, they are not able to compete with imported species of grass which limits their use.

To settle this problem, using breeding programs to produce short and fine-textured grass from native germplasms seems necessary.

For this purpose, the research was carried out to make the necessary corrections.

One of the challenges facing implementation of this project was how to work with plants and seeds since the cultivated seeds may not grow or show proper growth

This research led to the production of technical know-how for preparation of a suitable protocol for using the mutation method in improving the features of native grass species.

In a relevant development in July, a knowledge-based company in Iran succeeded in production of a smart irrigation system by using artificial intelligence (AI) that optimizes water consumption in agriculture by over 45%.

“Our activities are focused on designing and producing smart irrigation systems and providing services in the field of smart environment,” Zahra Abou Shahab, the managing director of the knowledge-based company stationed at the Science and Technology Park of Islamic Azad University, told ANA.

“Our company started working in 2014 and we tried to offer the best product in the field of water consumption management to the society by using different sciences and new technologies like electronics, mechatronics and artificial intelligence,” she added.

Abou Shahab pointed to the application of the company's knowledge-based products, and explained, “Since the major part of water consumption happens in the agricultural sector, the most important application of our product is the management of agricultural water consumption and it can optimize it more than 45%.”

“This product provides the user, farmer or well owner with the possibility to manage the consumption of energy and water carriers without being present and with minimal risk, thereby increasing the productivity of their production by 25 percent will be witnessed,” she underlined.

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