| Sorghum
success
 |
| Purdue Agriculture’s David
Sammons (from left) and Gebisa Ejeta and Texas A&M sorghum
breeder Darrell Rosenow stand in a sorghum field in Ethiopia.
The Striga-resistant variety was developed by Ejeta. (Photo
by Peter Goldsbrough) |
Purdue researchers have developed a variety of sorghum
that is so popular with farmers in Ethiopia that they refer to it
as “Purdue Sorghum,” rather than by its Ethiopian name.
A group of Purdue Agriculture faculty and graduate
students saw the success of this variety first hand while attending
a global meeting of the International
Sorghum and Millet Collaborative Research Support Program (INTSORMIL
CRSP) in Ethiopia last fall.
"This has been a bad year for many countries
in Africa,” says agronomy professor Gebisa
Ejeta, a member of the CRSP. “There are a number of countries
with chronic food problems, and Ethiopia is one of them.”
Ejeta, who is of Ethiopian descent, has been leading Purdue’s
sorghum
research to improve this African staple crop in ways that will
keep thousands of families from going hungry this year.
There are two major problems that farmers confront
in sorghum production: extremely dry weather conditions and the
threat of the parasitic weed Striga. “The last 10 to 15 years,
we’ve been developing unique research approaches to get a
handle on the Striga problem,” says Ejeta. “We have
developed sorghum varieties in our breeding program here that have
high levels of resistance to Striga.”
Fields of this genetically enhanced sorghum were juxtaposed
with fields of local sorghum in Ethiopia and the results were dramatic.
The local crop was badly infested by Striga weeds, while the field
planted with the Purdue-developed seed was Striga-free.
"The work that Gebisa has done has contributed
dramatically to sorghum producers all across sub-Saharan Africa,”
says David Sammons, associate dean of Purdue Agriculture and director
of International
Programs in Agriculture and a member of the INTSORMIL board
of directors. “The varieties that he has developed are remarkable
by themselves and even more remarkable if you look at them side
by side with fields of other varieties.” |
