The writer is a science commentatorWitchweed, a parasitic plant, is scarier than any fictional triffid. It feasts on sorghum — a crop used across Africa for food, construction and industrial processing — by clinging to its roots and sucking away water and nutrients.
Harmful species of witchweed, a genus more formally known as Striga, blight the majority of farmland across the continent, costing farmers around $7bn a year in lost yields. Trap crops, planted to lure pests away, and herbicides are viewed as impractical or somewhat ineffective for smallholders.
Now, researchers in Kenya are using the relatively cheap and accessible gene-editing tool Crispr to create new varieties of Striga-resistant sorghum. Some of their work was showcased earlier this month at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference in San Diego.