A partnership of scientists lead by IITA, CIRAD, and Africa Rice are studying how weaver ants, the most ancient biocontrol agent on record, can protect economically important crops, such as mango, from the invasive fruit fly.
Witchweed or Striga has cast a “spell” on millions of hectares of cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa. Discover how IITA and partners concocted a “potion” to ward off its effects on cereals using a natural enemy—a fungus!
IITA Biotechnology Lab Head Ivan Ingelbrecht describes the state of genetic transformation on cassava, and presents some of the enabling tools for biotechnology-mediated improvement, and other complementary approaches, such as conventional breeding and use of artificial mini-chromosomes.
Plants, like people, need healthcare. But in Africa, where agriculture is dominated by smallholders, farmers do not have access to reliable plant health advice and management services.
Uganda based IITA breeder Jim Lorenzen describes macropropagation as an alternative method of producing and distributing banana planting materials to help reduce the spread of pests and diseases.
Last August, the international community came together in Tanzania to establish a framework for combating the worst enemies of African banana in years—banana Xanthomonas wilt and banana bunchy top disease.
Fourteen years after it was first introduced, the biopesticide Green Muscle®, which uses the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae to kill pests, is still effectively targeting invasive locusts that threaten African farmlands.
A partnership of scientists lead by IITA, CIRAD, and Africa Rice are studying how weaver ants, the most ancient biocontrol agent on record, can protect economically important crops, such as mango, from the invasive fruit fly.
The “father of biocontrol”, Peter Neuenschwander, joined IITA’s biocontrol project against the cassava mealybug in 1983, and retired in 2003. In this interview, he bares his mind on the contribution of biocontrol and strategies on how Africa can check invasive pests.
The president of one of the strongest crop networks in Nigeria, Pastor O.A. Adenola, talks about the need for stakeholders to join forces against aflatoxin spread and other issues.
IITA Virologist James Legg explains the progress of research on understanding the deadly relationship between the whitefly vectors and the viruses that are causing the destructive cassava mosaic and cassava brown streak diseases.