By Rudy A. Fernandez, The Philippine STAR via SEAMEO SEARCA

Thanks to India, the Philippine vegetable industry will soon include genetically modified (GM) eggplant as one of the prized food crops.

Said to be the first GM eggplant in South and Southeast Asia, the new pest-resistant eggplant was developed by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) based in Jaina, India.

It was introduced in the Philippines three years ago and it is now in the final stage of trial in greenhouse at the University of the Philippine Los Baños - Institute of Plant Breeding (UPLB-IPB).

By the early part of this year, trials will shift outside the greenhouse, although still in a limited scale. In the succeeding year, it will undergo multicoation trials in various parts of the country.  Studies in India indicated that GM eggplant’s resistant to the eggplant fruit and shoot borer (EFSB), the crop’s most destructive pest.

Losses range from 50 to 70 percent, about the same as in the Philippines, according to Dr. Bharst Char, principal scientist at Mahyco.

He reported the progress of India’s Bt (Bacillus thuringensis) eggplant program at the Third Asian Biotechnology Conference held recently in Manila.

Dr. Char said that all the Bt eggplant hybrids they have developed have higher percentage of marketable yield as compared to their non-Bt counterpart, local and commercial checks.

The success of the project in the Philippines augurs well for the eggplant industry, which is widely grown in the Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Visayas and Western Visayas.

Eggplant has edged out tomato as the number one Philippine vegetable fruit crop, UPLB-IBP’s Dr. Desiree Hautas reported.