Goodbye to late blight
Leaf blight and brown rot in potatoes and tomatoes cause global losses to the equivalent of SEK 48 billion every year. But now the fight to vanquish this ancient problem has taken a substantial step in the right direction.
The potato mould Phytophthora infestans was behind the potato blight that caused the Great Irish Potato famine of 1850. A famine that left around one million dead.
However this problem has not gone away.
Swedish potato production is seriously threatened as the most common potato sorts are highly receptive to mould, all according to KTH researchers.
These researchers, who are part of an international research group, have taken up this problem and made a substantial stride in the right direction – towards the eradication of the hated potato plague by mapping genetic information which will increase knowledge on where the potato mould gets its cunning ability to rapidly develop resistance to fungicides.
“In the future these results can be used to steer research towards the discovery of more fit-for-purpose measures against potato mould,” says Johanna Fugelstad, doctoral student in biotechnology at KTH and one of the researchers involved in this work.
Research colleague Vincent Bulone, Professor of Biotechnology at KTH, agrees on the success of this research.
“Its goal has been achieved. This was to see what it was in the potato leaf mould’s DNA that stands out in comparison to closely related species,” states Vincent Bulone.
Some work still remains to be done before potato growers can relax, however. According to Vincent Bulone the genes that cause the infection have to be studied more closely as to function before it is possible to develop new ways of fighting late potato blight.
“Hopefully these research results will lead the way to a new, environmentally-friendly method of solving this problem,” asserts Vincent.
This international research work on potato mould has just been published in the scientific journal Nature.
For more information, please contact Vincent Bulone at vincent.bulone@biotech.cth.se or on +46 8 553 78 841.
Read article on Nature’s website
Peter Larsson