TeBeest, D.O., C. Guerber and M. Ditmore. 2007. Rice blast. The Plant Health Instructor. DOI: 10.1094/PHI-I-2007-0313-07

DISEASE:  Rice Blast

PATHOGEN:  Magnaporthe oryzae (anamorph: Pyricularia oryzae)

HOSTS:  Rice (Oryza sativa).

Authors
David O. TeBeest, Claudia Guerber, and Michael Ditmore
University of Arkansas

Figure 1	Figure 2	Figure 3

Hundreds of millions of people world-wide depend on rice as a staple food (Figures 1, 2). A crop failure, for any reason, poses a real threat of starvation. Rice blast, caused by a fungus, causes lesions (Figure 3) to form on leaves, stems, peduncles, panicles, seeds, and even roots. So great is the potential threat for crop failure from this disease that it has been ranked among the most important plant diseases of them all. Other grasses, including crabgrass, are infected with closely related fungi (Magnaporthe grisea, Magnaporthe poae, Magnaporthe rhizophila and Magnaporthe salvinii), which cause nearly identical symptoms on their respective hosts.