Research Projects Into Improving Crop Plants Receive Major Funding

December 10, 2012 by Leave a comment

The University of Illinois has received a five year, $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve the photosynthetic properties of key food crops, such as rice and cassava. The project, entitled ‘RIPE- Realising Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency’ has the potential to benefit farmers by improving the productivity of staple food crops. Increasing photosynthetic efficiency has the potential to increase yields and reduce the use of irrigation and fertilisation, however to date there has been limited research on photosynthetic properties of crop plants. The University of Illinois research team will apply recent advances in photosynthetic research, model simulations and crop bioengineering to the RIPE project. Stephen Long, the Project Director and Professor of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology at Illinois said:

“The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation predict that the world will need to increase staple crop yields by 20% by 2050. Photosynthesis promises a new area, ripe for exploitation that will provide part of the yield jump the world needs to maintain food security”

Women oversea cassava harvesting in Nigeria, the largest producer of cassava © IFDC Photography, via Flickr (License CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Women over look cassava harvesting in Nigeria, the largest producer of cassava © IFDC Photography, via Flickr (License CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0)

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Cassava virus resistance breakthrough for Africa

October 8, 2012 by 3 Comments

Cassava roots

Cassava is a staple food for millions but is susceptible to viruses that make it unpalatable © Seth Anderson (CC BY SA license)

One of the worst diseases of the tuber crop, cassava, in sub-Saharan Africa is Cassava brown streak disease (CBSD). Since its resurgence in East Africa in recent years, it is now spreading to Central and Western Africa. The other major disease of cassava in this region, Cassava mosaic disease (CMD), can also cause widespread damage to the crop, however there already CMD-resistant varieties of cassava available. Until now, very little natural resistance to CBSD has been found. Plant scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich have combined natural resistance to CMD with modifications of the cassava genome to develop a variety of cassava resistant to both CBSD and CMD that can be grown in Africa. As cassava is a staple food to millions of people, this new variety has the potential to halt the spread of the disease and prevent famine from crop losses. Read more of this post

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Solution to devastating weed draws closer for sub Saharan Africa

August 3, 2012 by 1 Comment

Yield reductions due to highly invasive parasitic Striga may soon be a thing of the past. (Flickr, CIMMYT CCBY-NC-SA 2.0)

Striga, commonly known as witchweed, is a group of parasitic weeds found in over a third of cereal crops in sub Saharan Africa (SSA). Crops typically yield at least 40% less when they are parasitised by Striga, causing an estimated US$ 7 billion loss and reducing the food security of millions.  Read more of this post

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Climate change to affect agriculture

July 11, 2012 by Leave a comment

Sorghum is likely to be badly hit by climate change. Flickr Bob Nichols CC BY.

With the Rio +20 conference occurring just last month, the world leaders have been encouraged to take notice of the global poverty and environmental concerns. Climate change was a key issue and with the population set to reach 9 billion by 2050, the impact this will have on food security is of paramount importance, especially with only a finite amount of land suitable for crop growth. The focus is therefore on finding ways to increase yields from the existing agricultural land. Read more of this post

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Stopping Striga before it’s started

January 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

The flowers might look pretty but Striga has affected millions of hectares of crops in Africa © IITA Image Library (Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0 license)

Striga, or witchweed, is the main weed affecting many cereals including rice, maize, sorghum and millet. One species, Striga hermonthica, is responsible for more crop loss in Africa than any other individual species of weed. Striga is a hemi-parasitic weed; its roots latch onto the roots of its host (e.g. a crop plant such as rice) and take water and nutrients from the host plant. Muhammad Jamil and his colleagues at Wageningen University in the Netherlands have found a way to reduce germination of Striga seeds, thereby preventing crop plants from being affected in the first place.

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The seed social network

December 2, 2011 by 1 Comment

More varieties of cowpea seed give farmers more resilience against environmental extremes © IITA

A new study by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) looking at cowpea crop diversity following floods and drought in Mozambique has shown that seed sharing networks are a valuable way to maintain, and often improve, crop diversity. Informal sharing and trade of seed within and between local communities in the Limpopo River Valley, Mozambique has been specified as the reason for a relatively quick recovery of cowpea crop diversity following floods and drought in the area in 2000. The study showed that farmers who grew ‘relief seed’ distributed by humanitarian agencies, or bought seed from the market did not have much diversity in their cowpea crops. However, the farmers who exchanged seed as they had done before the disasters contributed the most to restoration of cowpea diversity in the area.
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Cotton Topping Reduces Pests

August 9, 2011 by Leave a comment

Cotton topping has been reported to reduce bollworm infestations without negatively affecting cotton yields. Scientists in Mali looked at three bollworm species, which are responsible for the majority of cotton yield losses in sub-Saharan areas of Africa, where topping is no longer employed.

Cotton Bollworm by Ombrosoparacloucycle (Flickr)

Cotton topping is an agricultural technique in which the shoot tips of cotton plants are cut off by farmers. It has been used in some sub-Saharan Africa regions to increase crop yields, but has not previously been studied in the context of reducing crop pests.

One species of concern is the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera, which is a pest of major importance in most areas where it occurs, damaging a wide variety of crops including cotton. The distribution map on Plantwise.org includes nearly 600 distribution points. The presence of two to three larvae on a cotton plant is enough to destroy all the bolls (the protective capsule that cotton grows in) within 15 days. It can be controlled  with pesticides as long as they are applied in the early stages of their growth.

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