Fungus-resistant gene found in rice

Blast affects the quality of rice, making it non-sticky, hard and of poor flavor which are attributed to low-quality rice. In their research, scientist blend the Pi21gene to varieties of high-quality plant rice and exposed it to blast. The rice retained its superior quality, thus, the result of the experiment proves to be helpful in cultivating rice especially in mountainous areas of Japan where blast could pose a great danger to the growth and development of rice plants. The leader of the team Shuichi Fukuoka at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences' Genomics Research Center cited in a phone interview with Reuters that

"The (blast) resistant rice was good ... the rice was sticky and taste was good,"

Rice, a cereal grain is the most important staple of food for a large part of the world's population and forms the basis of traditional South America, the West Indies and greater parts of Asia.