Gates backs sorghum research and plant-breeder training

A team of African and US researchers has received a $1 million grant to develop a tool that will create varieties of disease-resistant sorghum.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding the four partners who include Eric Danquah, the director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) at the University of Ghana.

Danquah and his three partners at Purdue University in the US will identify the genes in sorghum that make it susceptible to striga, a parasitic weed that attacks its roots and significantly decreases yields.