AN EXOTIC fungus may help save your favourite cup of tea from a plague of green weed that is strangling India’s tea crops, from Assam to Darjeeling. Scientists are planning to introduce the rust fungus later this year to kill off the weed, although they must first check that the fungus itself won’t run amok and kill other plants.
Researchers have long been searching for a biological agent to kill the weed Mikania micrantha. “The plant can grow at a phenomenal rate,” says Sean Murphy at CABI Bioscience in Egham, UK. “In the monsoon season it is like seeing a…
