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| June-July 2003 |
Articles |
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Yam disease - "pregnancy test kits" to the rescueIITA, inew
Equipped with such a kit, scientists working in the field, buyers and sellers of seed yam, agriculture information agents, and plant quarantine inspectors will be able to diagnose viruses on the spot. But designing a practical kit isn’t so simple. “We’ve got tests that work in the lab, but they’re not applicable in real situations,” said IITA virologist Dr Jackie Hughes. “Producing a kit for field use requires a lot of technical skill. We can see the way forward and intend to use our expertise.” The kit needs to include something for extracting sap from leaves, test strips, and a user guide with color sketches. And all the pieces need to fit into a plastic case that carries easily in a pocket. When a test strip is dipped in yam sap, the sap will move along the strip, binding with antibodies that react with viruses. The antibodies will be labeled with color, and lines will appear on the strip when a virus is present. In a refined version, the strips could show a blue line for one virus, a pink line for a different virus, and an orange line for another virus, with results appearing within a couple of minutes. Work to develop the kit started in April, and scientists hope to have a prototype by the end of the year. The Gatsby Charitable Foundation of the UK is funding this three-year project to develop the kits and produce enough to demonstrate their worth to potential users and local companies that could manufacture them. Once the scientists find a straightforward, portable way to identify one virus in yam, it will be applicable to all crops, and virus diagnostics can move from the labs out into farmers’ fields.More Information: I.new, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA. www.iita.org
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Inspired
by the home pregnancy test kit, IITA scientists are developing an easy-to-use,
portable kit to test yam for viruses in the field. Yam diseases are easily
passed from one generation to the next because to propagate yam, the tubers are
cut into pieces and replanted. A user-friendly, accurate, and inexpensive field
virus test kit would make it much easier for farmers to grow disease-free yam.