Societal Impact Statement Infestation by the parasitic plant Striga hermonthica is a severe threat to food security in sub‐Saharan Africa, impacting the production of the major staple crops pearl millet and sorghum, equating to 7–10 billion $ losses. Using Striga seed dependency on host‐released germination stimulants, we have developed and validated a method for addressing the problem of accumulated parasite seedbanks—the major obstacle in combating Striga infestation in African rain‐fed fields. Application of our method promises to alleviate the problem posed by this pernicious weed by increasing crop production for smallholder farmers. Summary The root parasitic plant Striga hermonthica is a major threat to global food security, causing enormous losses in yields of the main staple crops in sub‐Saharan Africa, which include pearl millet, sorghum, maize and rice. Sustainable Striga control should ideally lead to the depletion of the vast, long‐lived Striga seedbank, and this can be achieved by inducing suicidal seed germination through application of strigolactone (SL) analogs in the absence of host plants. However, this “suicidal germination” strategy has not been evaluated under the natural rain‐fed conditions that prevail in Striga‐prone regions. We have developed and validated a protocol for suicidal germination in laboratory and natural conditions in Striga‐infested rain‐fed African fields. Three SL analogs were tested and these resulted to between 65% and 55% reduction in Striga emergence in pearl millet and sorghum fields, respectively. We conclude that suicidal germination is an effective method for reducing the Striga seedbank. Moreover, the minimal demands of our protocol, in terms of water consumption and amount of selected SL analogs, make it affordable and applicable at a large scale in African rain‐fed agriculture, holding promise for sustainable cleaning of heavily Striga‐infested fields in sub‐Saharan Africa.
Sorghum is one of the main cereals in terms of production and cultivated area in Burkina Faso. However, genetic variability in Sorghum varieties is low. The study aims to induce genetic variability in farmers’ preferred sorghum varieties and select the novel desired traits. Seeds of two Sorghum varieties (Grinkan and Sariaso14) were irradiated with gamma rays at 200, 300, 400 and 500 Gy doses. The mutant populations were developed using the single seed descend method. A 2-years field assessment was conducted to assess the genetic variability among 403 advance generation Sorghum mutants. A significant difference between the doses was observed for leaf number plant− 1 (NPL) (P ≤ 1%) and the plant height (PlHe) (P ≤ 5%) of Sariaso14 lines and only for the PlHe (P ≤ 1%) of Grinkan lines. All irradiation doses significantly increased the grain weight panicle− 1 of Sariaso14 lines while they affected those of Grinkan lines. The genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV), the phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV), the broad sense heritability (H2) and the genetic gain (GG) were high for grain weight panicle− 1 (GrWe). They were 90.82%, 92.84%, 0.95 and 183%, respectively for Sariaso14 lines and 80.85%, 89%, 0.82 and 151.3% respectively for Grinkan lines demonstrating that the observed variations for this trait was mainly due to genetic factors. The clustering of the mutants showed that the mutagenesis allowed the selection of dwarf, early maturity and high grain weight mutants. Thus, the induced mutation has improved the agronomic performances of sorghum varieties.
Striga species affect the potential productivity of cereals in sub-saharian Africa due to the lack of durable Striga-resistance in host crops. This study aimed at inducing new source of resistance in sorghum using gamma irradiation. Dry seeds of three Sorghum varieties; Grinkan, ICV1049 and Sariaso14 were gamma-irradiated with 200 Gy, 300 Gy, 400 Gy and 500 Gy. Screening strategies involved a 2-year field and greenhouse experiments, where mutant Sorghum families, their parents and resistant control were artificially infected with Striga hermonthica seeds. Field screenings revealedinduced genetic variability among them, forty families significantly reduced the number of emerged Striga plants or showed good Sorghum grain yield performance despite the infection by S. hermonthica ecotype from Burkina Faso. The induced putative resistant mutants were identified across the the four applied irradiation doses. Greenhouse experiment confirmed Striga resistance in seven mutant Sorghum families leading to no emergence of Burkina’s S. hermonthica ecotype along with high resistance index (RI) and low Striga damage score. Among them, two mutants SA38M5 and IC47M5 withstood S. hermonthica ecotype from Sudan and S. asiatica ecotype from Madagascar. The induced mutants will be evaluated for release to farmers for commercial production. Further studies are ongoing on confirmed mutants to highlight their Striga resistance mechanisms and explore the potential of pyramiding different mechanism to produce durable resistance to S. hermonthica in sorghum.
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