A UC Davis professor’s research and counseling contributed to understanding a new biological mechanism that may result in higher crop yields and increased food security.

Professor Emeritus Kent Bradford is listed as a coauthor of a May 2025 study that has received attention among the scientific community. Lead author Ryushiro Kasahara and his team at Nagoya University managed to increase the size of rice seeds by 9%, which may correspond to larger harvests.

The collaboration revived Bradford’s decades-long interest in callose, the sugar that controls the flow of nutrients from a mother plant to a seed.

In the 1980s, Bradford and his team at UC Davis hypothesized that callose compounds surrounding muskmelon seeds formed a semi-permeable barrier. This selective gate allowed water to tra

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