Agrotecnio and the University of Lleida (UdL) have developed a rice resistant to pyricularia, a disease caused by a fungus that can cause real havoc in the field and even cause the entire harvest to be lost.
The research, focused on the bomb variety, has consisted of deactivating a gene specific to the plant that the fungus needs to identify to infect it. Thus, the fungus is unable to recognize it and, therefore, cannot invade it.
Currently, this disease can only be treated with phytosanitary products, although the list of fungicides authorized by the European Union is increasingly reduced. And in this context, Europe has opened the door to commercializing vegetables obtained with new genomic techniques, such as rice.
The rice developed is the result of two projects financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Sutainrice and Blast-Away) with the involvement of a company in the sector.
The Agrotecnio Applied Biotechnology research group, led by Paul Christou and Teresa Capell, has been working on rice biotechnology and genetic editing for more than 30 years and the Forestry group led by Jordi Voltas has been collaborating with rice production companies for more than 20 years. rice seed from the Ebro Delta.
Piricularia, also known as rice burn, is one of the main diseases that affect rice and causes large productive losses. In Catalonia, the production of this cereal is concentrated mainly in the Terres de l’Ebre and, according to provisional data from the Department of Climate Action, last year a total of 108,827 tons of rice were produced in the country as a whole on an area planted with 20,542 hectares.
Fungicides are used to treat this fungus, although the European Union has restricted their use and it is expected that the list of products that can be used will be further reduced in the future. In this context, rice resistant to blast disease stands as an alternative for farmers who, without phytosanitary products, do not have the possibility of attacking this disease.
“If they ban the only chemicals that can control the disease, as is happening now, then farmers will not be able to produce and will therefore be in a terrible situation. Our technology offers an alternative, not only to chemical pesticides, but also to a sustainable and environmentally friendly way of addressing the problem without using chemicals,” he explained to Paul Christou, one of the researchers who led the research together with Teresa Capell and Jordi Voltas.