Category: Members

I’m excited to share that the Gordon Research Conference on Carotenoids and Apocarotenoids is coming up! Check out the program and come join us for a great event! 2025 Carotenoids Conference GRC […]

The yield of pearl millet, a resilient cereal crop crucial for African food security, is severely impacted by the root parasitic weed Striga hermonthica, which requires host-released hormones, called strigolactones (SLs), for seed germination. Herein, we identify four SLs present in the Striga-susceptible line SOSAT-C88-P10 (P10) but absent in the resistant 29Aw (Aw). We generate […]

Strigolactones exhibit dual functionality as regulators of plant architecture and signaling molecules in the rhizosphere. The important model crop rice exudes a blend of different strigolactones from its roots. Here, we identify the inaugural noncanonical strigolactone, 4-oxo-methylcarlactonoate (4-oxo-MeCLA), in rice root exudate. Comprehensive, cross-species coexpression analysis allowed us to identify a cytochrome P450, OsCYP706C2, and two methyl transferases as […]

Summary The parasitic plant genus Striga causes major yield losses to several crops such as sorghum, millet, and rice in arid and semi-arid regions of the tropics. For Striga to successfully parasitize its host plant, two conditions should be fulfilled: suitable germination conditions and the presence of a host plant that exudes so-called germination stimulants, strigolactones, that are also […]

Promise II is a 5-year project coordinated by NIOO-KNAW and funded for two 5-year periods by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project aims to engineer soil and plant microbiomes to minimize yield losses caused by Striga. In Sub-Saharan Africa, many farmers face challenges accessing affordable resources to protect crops against pests and diseases, and […]

Striga hermonthica, an obligate root parasitic weed, poses significant threat to cereal production in sub-Saharan Africa. Lowering Striga seed bank in infested soils is a promising strategy to mitigate infestation levels. The dependency of Striga seed germination on strigolactones opens up the possibility of a “suicidal germination” approach, where synthetic germination stimulants induce lethal germination […]

Striga is a flowering parasitic plant that can infect a broad range of crops including sorghum, maize and rice. The life cycle of Striga is intricately linked to its host, using host derived signals to initiate germination and attach to its host. Host susceptibility to Striga is thus directly correlated to the production and exudation […]

This open access book is a compilation of protocols developed through a Coordinated Research Project of the Joint FAO/IAEA Center of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, specifically focused on mutation breeding for resistance to Striga. The book consists of three sections; (i) a general introduction on Striga biology and impact and mutagenesis in cereal […]

Press release UC Davis Bacteria that could help one of Africa’s staple crops resist a major pest have been identified by researchers at the University of California, Davis. Their findings, published March 26 in Cell Reports, could improve yields of sorghum, a mainstay of food and drink in West and East African countries. About 20 […]

 In the Open Access publication “Host interactions, pathology, economic impacts and management of the facultative parasitic weed Rhamphicarpa fistulosa” we review, discuss and interpret the past 10 years of research conducted on rice vampireweed, a fascinating but destructive parasitic plant:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2024.106688This review starts where the previous review, conducted in 2014, finished: https://doi.org/10.1111/wre.12129  Since that previous review we’ve […]