Louisiana’s signature cuisine wouldn’t be the same without rice — but the state’s rice crop may be threatened by sheath blight, a disease that causes lesion-like spots to form on plants.
Clayton Hollier, a plant pathology professor with the LSU AgCenter, is working to survey rice fields of southwestern Louisiana after sheath blight was reported in Acadia Parish when growers noticed fungicides they used were less effective.
Sheath blight is caused by a common, naturally occurring fungus called Rhizoctonia solani. It can be spread by movement of soil, water and crop residue that occurs when growers plow and cultivate fields, Hollier said.
The blight currently found in Louisiana is fungicide-resistant, meaning products that farmers use to rid their crops of fungi fail to work properly, which Hollier said makes this disease serious. While there is an effective product on the market that farmers can use to kill the fungicide-resistant disease, Hollier said it is important to figure out what prompted the resistance.
His research will attempt to identify how widespread the blight is and how sensitive different samples of the blight are to fungicide. It will also be important to look for any genetic changes in the fungus that have caused it to become resistant, he said.
Hollier pointed out that while plant diseases are not uncommon, some are serious and require growers to adapt so they can still produce a profitable crop.
“We’re trying to understand it better, we’re trying to give the grower options that they might not have otherwise to try to deal with it and we’re trying to help them produce a good, healthy crop,” Hollier said.
A 2012 AgCenter map shows that Louisiana grows nearly 395,000 acres of rice. The four top-producing parishes are Jefferson Davis, Acadia, Evangeline and Vermilion in the southwestern region of the state.
According to a USA Rice Federation publication, Louisiana ranks third in the U.S. for rice production and exported $320 million worth of rice in fiscal year 2009.
We’re trying to understand it better, we’re trying to give the grower options that they might not have otherwise to try to deal with it and we’re trying to help them produce a good, healthy crop.”