Stacking three late blight resistance genes from wild species directly into African highland potato varieties confers complete field resistance to local blight races
This study report that transfer of three resistance (R) genes from wild relatives into potato provided complete resistance in the field over several seasons. The authors observed that the stacking of the three R genes produced a high frequency of transgenic events with resistance to late blight. Late blight resistant potato varieties, which are the farmers’ preferred varieties, could be rapidly adopted and bring significant income to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
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African cassava whitefly, Bemisia tabaci, cassava colonization preferences and control implications
This study assessed experimentally whether the age and variety of cassava affected the density of Bemisia tabaci. The authors conclude that managing cassava source fields to reduce B. tabaci abundance will be more effective than manipulating nearby varieties. They suggest that planting a “whitefly sink” variety is unlikely to reduce B. tabaci SSA1 populations unless fields are managed to reduce B. tabaci densities using other integrative approaches.
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An Improved Transformation System for Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) via Sonication and a Kanamycin-Geneticin Selection Regime
This study describes an improved cowpea transformation method utilizing Agrobacterium-mediated gene delivery to explants derived from the cotyledonary nodes of imbibed cowpea seed. The method was reproducible and led to the recovery of independent fertile transgenic plants in the greenhouse at a level of about one per cent of starting explants.
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