Scientists have purified and identified an attractant for crop-infecting root-knot nematodes from flaxseeds. Their experiments revealed that rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-I), a flaxseed cell wall component ...

Sorghum crops in sub-Saharan Africa suffer heavy losses from the parasitic plant witchweed (Striga hermonthica). A new study shows how soil microbes can help protect sorghum from this pest and could ...

A farmer inspects sunflower plants, the crop under threat from sunflower broomrape - Tatevosian Yana/Shutterstock A rather nasty and fast-spreading parasitic plant has made its first detected ...

Some parasitic plants can ‘steal’ genetic information from their hosts through horizontal gene transfer, which they then use to make themselves a better parasite. Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a ...

Parasitic plants are notorious agricultural pests that drain nutrients from crops and cause economic losses of more than USD 1 billion due to yield losses every year. Yet these plants almost never ...

Biologists have discovered how tomato plants identify Cuscuta as a parasite. The plant has a protein in its cell walls that is identified as 'foreign' by a receptor in the tomato. Working together ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A weird-looking parasitic plant has discarded all its photosynthesis machinery – and nevertheless has found a way to thrive. A new ...

Scientists have found a bizarre food triangle between three different organisms lurking deep in the Peruvian Amazon. The cast of characters includes a yellow parasitic plant that bursts forth like ...

image: A: Nematodes attracted to a flaxseed BC: (Top) Nematode attraction tests using seed exudate from 0 (B) and 16 (C) hours of imbibition. After imbibing for 16 hours, nematode attraction activity ...

Bacteria that could help one of Africa’s staple crops resist a major pest have been identified by researchers at the University of California, Davis. Their findings, published March 26 in Cell Reports ...