Cosmas Butunyi
20 August 2008
Nairobi — Scientists have made a major breakthrough in the search for a solution to a weed that has hampered cereal production in Africa for years.
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) on Wednesday announced that it was on the verge of developing strains of sorghum resistant to striga weed.
The weed causes losses estimated at Sh462 billion in Africa, according to the Consultative Group for International Research.
Using a novel marker-assisted breeding technique, the researchers have found a way of conferring resistance to sorghum, millet, maize and rice.
The technique entails use of genetic markers to tag and transfer genes that control desirable characteristics such as improved crop productivity, resistance to diseases or pests and tolerance to floods and drought.
"When using this breeding method, we can monitor genetic composition of plants from an early stage unlike conventional methods," said one of the researchers, Dr Dionysious Kiambi.
Dr Kiambi said that the other methods involved waiting until crops attained maturity before the traits were expressed.
The search for striga-resistant sorghum began years ago as scientists scoured gene banks worldwide for the characteristic.
One of the sorghum varieties, N13, which was found to be neither high-yielding nor drought-resistant, was discovered to have the resistance.
It is this variety that has been crossed with varieties preferred by farmers using markers to precisely transfer only the striga-resistance without affecting other desirable characteristics.
Icrisat collaborated with the University of Hohenheim in Germany and national agricultural research institutes of Kenya, Eritrea, Mali and Sudan.
The team has already created five sorghum varieties that are resistant to the weed, and initial trials have been successful.
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