ARKANSAS: Rice Blast Research Garners Nearly $1 Million NSF Award
Martin Egan, a plant pathologist and microbiologist at the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, won a $943,941 grant from NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development Program to support research on a pathogenic rice plant fungus. The fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, which causes rice blast disease and crop failure, has also attacked wheat crops and may be growing resistant to fungicides.
"Annual yield losses attributed to rice blast disease alone have been estimated to be large enough to feed an additional 60 million people for an entire year," Egan said. "The emergence of fungicide resistance is a growing concern, so there is a need to develop new strategies to control blast diseases. This demands a more complete mechanistic understanding of the pathogen's infection biology."
Arkansas is the top rice-producing state in the nation with over 1 million acres of rice planted in 2022. The fungal pathogen has also recently affected wheat crops in parts of Asia, Egan added.