New research helps unlock ultra-futuristic weed control: 'Look inside the box of tricks they use'

Researchers now have high-quality genomic details on both orange foxtail and blackgrass weeds, which plague cereal crops in disparate parts of the globe, in hopes of understanding how to control these surprisingly resistant species. 

Both blackgrass and orange/shortawn foxtail are weeds common to the Northern Hemisphere, as noted by the research published in Scientific Data and relayed by Phys.org. The former is the dominant weed in Western Europe's wheat and barley crops, while orange foxtail has become problematic for similar crops in parts of China and Japan. 

As both of these agricultural invaders have evolved to become more resistant to herbicides, it's been difficult to map their original biological structure and understand how they function. 

Crops compete with their weed adversaries for essentials such as light, water, and nutrients, and the battle ultimately results in reduced crop yields. Outside factors such as pests and diseases have reduced crop outputs by around 20-40% across the globe.

In addition, the climate-related issues crops have been facing in recent years have further accelerated the decline, all of which impact the world's food security levels. 

Selective herbicides used to fend off weeds tend to be wasted when used on entire fields, and their run-off can negatively impact surrounding ecosystems and water supplies. 

"To understand how these weeds compete with the plants we want to cultivate, and look inside the box of tricks they use to frustrate farmers, we absolutely need to have high-quality genomes," said Jon Wright, a bioinformatician at Earlham Institute, per the report.

"We've been able to start exploring the evolutionary story of these weeds, particularly their development of herbicide resistance. This could be used to develop effective herbicides or other strategies to better control these weeds."

Now, new samples of both that have remained free from chemical interference have been sequenced, offering hope in tackling this agricultural problem.

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Rothamsted, Clemson University, and Bayer scientists provided a blackgrass genome in 2023, as Phys.org detailed, sourcing them from a long-term experiment that collected them back in 2017. 

More recently, the Rothamsted team joined with the Earlham Institute and the European Reference Genome Atlas initiative to fully sequence orange foxtail plants grown from U.K.-collected seed supplies at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank.

"With these platinum-quality genomes in hand, we can shrink the continental-scale geographic isolation and 7.4 million years of divergence between these two species to ask whether similarities between these two species are the result of parallel evolution or have a common origin," said Rothamsted researcher Dr. Dana MacGregor, per the Phys.org article.

She went on to add that, "We gain a better understanding of what makes these weeds such exceptional survivors in modern agricultural systems."

More eco-friendly herbicides are one more sustainable path toward controlling the spread of crop-invading species. However, understanding how these weeds work on a biological level will give farmers and scientists the tools they need to overcome future challenges. 

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