Wild sorghum will soon provide a reservoir for resistance genes against Striga. A research team lead by Dr. Steven Runo of the Plant Transformation Laboratory (PTL) at Kenyatta University and Professor Michael Timko of University of Virginia has identified three wild sorghum accessions resistant to Striga hermonthica (witchweed), a parasitic plant devastating cereal production in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Some 36 biotech players from 15 countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe gathered for a workshop on regulatory, scientific, and communication aspects of implementation of international agreements relevant to agri-biotechnology. The event was held on November 6-7, 2017 at Monash University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The participants include biotechnology scientists, science communicators, and representatives from public and private sectors.

Parthenocarpy in horticultural crop plants is an important trait with agricultural value for various industrial purposes as well as direct eating quality. The team of Risa Ueta from Tokushima University in Japan introduced a breeding strategy to generate parthenocarpic tomato plants using the CRISPR-Cas9 system.

An international research team led by the University of Adelaide has published the full genome of the water buffalo. The consortium of partners in Australia, Italy, China, Brazil, and the USA, with additional contributors from other countries, say they have now created the tools needed to apply modern molecular breeding systems to water buffalo.

Gene editing technology, such as the use of CRISPR-Cas9, could revolutionize the development of high-yielding, drought-, disease- and pest-resistant, and quality plant seeds; with lesser time of development compared to current breeding methods. These were highlighted by a panel of expert scientists at the 2017 Borlaug Dialogue conference held on October 18-20, 2017 in Des Moines, Iowa.

The latest biosafety regulatory guidelines in the Philippines, the Joint Department Circular (JDC), was presented to around 200 key stakeholders from Region III such as farmers, Department of Agriculture (DA) information officers, regulators, members of the academe (students and faculty from various universities), and constituents of local government units of selected municipalities in the region.

Chinese scientists develop new rice varieties that can be planted in seawater, which can potentially provide food for 200 million people. Scientists have long been working on rice that can grow in seawater, and finally commercially viable varieties are now being tested. Around 200 rice varieties are under testing near the Yellow Sea coastal city of Qingdao in Shandong province to see which ones perform best in salty conditions.

Scientists at Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) and the National Engineering Research Center for Vegetables in Beijing, China have sequenced the genomes of two important pumpkin species, Cucurbita maxima and C. moschata. The research team sequenced the two pumpkin species to better understand their contrasting desirable traits: C. moschata is known for its resistance to disease and other stresses, such as extreme temperatures, while C. maxima is better known for its fruit quality and nutrition.

In keeping with recent calls for commitments from all to contribute towards a pollution-free planet, experts and observers joined members of the Rotterdam (RC) and Stockholm (SC) Conventions' chemical review committees for back-to-back meetings in Rome in recent days and reviewed a record number of chemicals for inclusion in annexes of the two Conventions,

Quality seed production and ensuring delivery of quality seeds to farmers are significant challenges for national seed systems around the globe.  To address these challenges, IRRI Education, together with with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the Latin American Fund for Irrigated Rice (FLAR), conducted a two-week training on seed production and understanding of seed systems.