AudioPod

Jan 11, 2023 | biology, earth and environment

About this episode

Future food security is one of the key global challenges facing society. Climate change presents significant threats to our ability to produce staple food crops – particularly in regions already vulnerable to droughts. Dr Kahiu Ngugi and his research team from the University of Nairobi and other institutions in Kenya investigated numerous varieties of sorghum – one of the world’s most important cereal crops. Their aim was to find new genes that would allow the crop to withstand both drought and a common parasitic weed.

Original Article Reference

This SciPod is a summary of the papers ‘Novel sources of drought tolerance from landraces and wild sorghum relatives’, in Crop Science, doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20300, and ‘Genotypic Variation in Cultivated and Wild Sorghum Genotypes in Response to Striga hermonthica Infestation’, in Frontiers in Plant Science, doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.671984.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International LicenseCreative Commons License

What does this mean?

Share: You can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Adapt: You can change, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Credit: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

Increase the impact of your research!

More episodes

Dr. Kim Saverno | Real-World Impact: How Targeted Therapy is Changing Cholangiocarcinoma Treatment

Cholangiocarcinoma is an aggressive cancer that begins in the bile ducts. While the cancer is relatively rare,...

Dr Richard Saumarez | Beyond the Heartbeat: How Direct Cardiac Investigation Could Save Lives in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Beyond

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (or HCM for short) is a serious heart condition that involves thickening of the heart...

Dr. Qiang Wang | Fishing for Findings: Uncovering the Genetics of Hearing Loss

Our hearing is amongst our most profound senses, connecting us to the surrounding world through sound. However, this...

Dr Robert Shumaker | What Orangutan Tool Use Tells Us About Human Evolution

Humans aren’t the only species that use tools, many animals do. Our closest relatives, the great apes, have long been...

Dr. Kurt Vollmer | Weeding Out the Competition: The Promise of Cover Crops in Sustainable Agriculture

As global agriculture faces increasing challenges from climate change, soil degradation, and herbicide resistance,...

Dr Ramtin Zand | A Hybrid System for Real-Time Sign Language Translation

Neuromorphic computing is a powerful tool for identifying time-varying patterns, but is often less effective than some...