Vampire Plants, Witchweeds, and Other Sinister Parasitic Plants

In this episode, Dr. Jim Westwood, Professor of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University joins host Matt Kasson to discuss parasitic plants and his lab’s work on their novel structures and mechanisms for information exchange with their hosts. He also discusses his time in the Peace Corps in Mauritania and as a Fulbright Scholar in France along with management strategies used against parasitic plants both in the U.S. and abroad.

Show Notes

Dr. Westwood’s Virginia Tech profile: https://spes.vt.edu/faculty-staff/faculty/westwood-james.html

Dr. Westwood’s lab website: https://spes.vt.edu/faculty-staff/faculty/westwood-james/westwood-lab.html

Dr. Westwood’s google scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Q1dozYAAAAJ&hl=en

Virginia Tech write-up on Dr. Westwood’s NSF Plant Genome Grant using parasitic plants to edit host plant genomes: https://news.vt.edu/articles/2024/12/parasitic-weeds-tool-for-altering-plant-genomics-collaboration-nsf.html

This episode is produced by Association Briefings.