Host plant defence mechanisms (resistance and tolerance) and plant nutrition are two of the most widely proposed components for the control of hemi-parasitic weeds of the Striga genus in tropical cereal production systems. Neither of the two components alone are effective enough to prevent parasitism and concomitant crop losses. This review explores the potential of improved Accepted Article This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved plant nutrition, being the chemical constituent of soil fertility, to fortify the expression of plant inherent resistance and tolerance against Striga. Beyond reviewing advances in parasitic plant research, we assess relevant insights from phytopathology and plant physiology in the broader sense to identify opportunities and knowledge gaps and to develop the way forward regarding research and development of combining genetics and plant nutrition for the durable control of Striga.

For ages, plant breeders have relied on the genetic variability that results from sexually crossing plants within the same species. However, the variability that exists within species populations is inadequate, hence the need to exploit desirable traits of interest in distantly related or even unrelated plants through hybridization techniques. Hybridization can be categorized into two; sexual and somatic. Sexual hybridization, also referred to as wide or distant hybridization involves combining two genomes from different parental taxa through pollination, either naturally or by induction. Somatic hybridization involves the fusion of somatic cells instead of gametes, which highly depends on the ability to obtain viable protoplasts and eventually differentiate them to whole plants in vitro. The impacts of hybrids can either be positive or negative. Among the positive attributes of hybrids that have been exploited is heterosis, which results either from dominance, over-dominance or epistasis. Negative ones include sterility, arrested growth of the pollen tube and embryo abortion. To overcome these problems, chromosome doubling, the use of hormones such as 2, 4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2, 4-D) and embryo rescue have been employed to overcome sterility, arrested growth of pollen tubes and embryo abortion respectively. After the development of hybrids, different hybrid identification techniques have been used to test them such as the use of molecular and morphological markers, cytogenetic analysis and fluorescent in situ hybridization. The use of hybridization techniques in plant improvement remains a vital tool to cross species barriers and utilization of important attributes in unrelated crop plants which could not have been achieved through conventional techniques of plant breeding.