Identification of the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

Abstract

Magnaporthe oryzaeis a causal agent of the rice blast disease resulting serious damages in the production of rice worldwide. The early symptom of rice blast disease can be confused with those caused by other fungal diseases leading to many difficulties in efficient and effective disease management. Currently, identification of the rice blast fungus by using conventional method requires more time (at least 24 hours), labour and unreliability. An alternative method by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the primers of Pot2 transposon known to reduce those factors for detection of the rice blast fungus will be done in this study. The results indicated the specificity of Pot2 transposon can be used for the rapid detection of both Magnaporthe oryzae and blast fungus infected leaf/neck in rice, but not in other phytopathogenic fungi. Therefore, PCR method has been considered as an alternative tool of diagnostic, particularly in-field detection of blast disease in practice