September 23, 2005
Infecting crops with a fungus
could be an alternative to genetically modifying them to boost
yields, say scientists.
In research
published this week (20 September) in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, they showed that barley
infected with a fungus called Piriformospora indica had
three key advantages over uninfected plants.
As well as being
able to grow in salty conditions, the infected barley yielded up
to 11 per cent more grain, mainly because each plant had more
seed-heads than uninfected barley.
The plants were
also better at resisting infection by two disease-causing fungi
(Fusarium culmorum and Cochliobolus sativus) that
cause considerable economic losses worldwide.
Frank Waller of
the University of Giessen in Germany, who led the
laboratory-based study, told SciDev.Net that its findings
challenge the notion that inducing crop resistance to disease or
conditions such as salinity carries the cost of lower yields.
Explaining that
barley is used as a model crop for research on other cereals
such as rice and wheat, he said the research was important
because soil salinity and plant diseases are major global causes
of crop loss.
Piriformospora
indica, which was recently discovered in India, naturally
infects the roots of plants growing in the same environment.
Waller said the
fungus could be used to improve the stress and pathogen
resistance of other plants that are difficult to genetically
modify.
It can easily be
grown on a large scale and could become a new tool for
sustainable agriculture, he said.
Link to abstract
of paper in Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 102, 13386 (2005):
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/38/13386
by
Wagdy Sawahel, SciDev.Net |