Chinese scientists succeed in creating two novel biofungicides for rice disease control

A few days ago, China’s Guizhou University announced the successful development of two novel biofungicides, a significant breakthrough in preventing and controlling rice bacterial diseases. The successful development was announced at the National Key R&D Program-oriented Field Trial Evaluation, held in Xiangyang City, Hubei Province. Experts believe that the two novel fungicides have performed satisfactorily in the prevention and control of rice bacterial streak, recommending that the product registration be processed speedily and be applied to trials on the control of diseases in other crops.

The two novel fungicides, namely pleuromutilin 20% SC and chloroacetyl-pleuromutilin 20% SC, are pure natural biological pesticides, as developed by the National Key Laboratory of Green Pesticides of Guizhou University after four years of efforts and more than 1,000 experiments. The two products have the advantages of less use, good effect, low cost and environmental safety, having been fully tested in many provinces with fruitful results. 

In the field trials, the two novel products showed a high safety for rice growth and effective prevention and control of rice bacterial streak. The results of field trials have revealed above 85% effect of control of rice bacterial streak at per-mu use of 75ml of chloroacetyl-pleuromutilin 20% SC in aerial application and per-mu use of 100ml of pleuromutilin 20% SC, which appears superior to a farmer’s pesticide applications. The trials also show that the above products are not only effective in controlling of rice bacterial streak, and against rice bacterial leaf blight and citrus canker. 

Experts suggest that the research on the mixture of the two products and the safety for use in different rice varieties be accelerated to grasp the best time for application, to be supported by the speedy promotion and registration process. Overall, the successful development of the two novel biofungicides is not only of great significance to the prevention and control of rice diseases but also provides new ideas and methods for the control of major diseases and new references to the green crop protection initiative.