The fungus genus Ceratobasidium has been recognized as the reason for cassava witches’ broom illness, due to a current advance in DNA sequencing expertise.
This discovery’s cutting-edge nanopore expertise was initially created to trace the COVID-19 virus in Colombia, but it surely will also be used to detect and cease the unfold of plant viruses. Scientists in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand will be capable to save farmers’ useful cassava harvest with the help of the discoveries, which have been revealed in Scientific Stories.
In Southeast Asia, most smallholder farmers depend on cassava: its starch-rich roots type the idea of an business that helps tens of millions of producers. Up to now decade, nevertheless, Cassava Witches’ Broom illness has stunted crops, lowering harvests to ranges that hardly allow affected farmers to make a dwelling.
Wilmer Cuellar, Senior Scientist, Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT
Oxford Nanopore DNA/RNA sequencing expertise has been utilized by researchers on the Alliance of Bioversity Worldwide and CIAT to incorporate nanotechnology of their examine since 2017. This refined instrument solves deeper puzzles about vegetation by exactly detecting crop-damaging pathogens, together with micro organism, fungus, and viruses.
If you discover out which pathogen is current in a crop, you possibly can implement an acceptable diagnostic technique, seek for resistant varieties and combine that prognosis into selection choice processes.
Ana Maria Leiva, Senior Researcher, Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT
Nanotechnology serves as an interface between the seen and the scarcely conceivable. This invention redefines the comprehension and strategy to treating agricultural illnesses by offering a window into the microscopic world of pathogens and vegetation.
Journal Reference:
Leiva, A. M., et. al. (2024). Ceratobasidium sp. is related to cassava witches’ broom illness, a re-emerging risk to cassava cultivation in Southeast Asia. Scientific Stories. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-49735-5