Team of Scientists Look to Strengthen Sorghum

On February 2, USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) announced that a team of scientists at ARS and Purdue University discovered a gene that could help fortify sorghum against anthracnose, a disease that can inflict yield losses of up to 50 percent. This discovery opens the door to breeding disease-resistant sorghum cultivars that are less reliant on fungicides to protect them, reducing growers’ production costs and safeguarding grain yields and quality, among other benefits. For more information, read the ARS press release here.