Biotech eyed for papaya, other RP plants

A leading Filipino mole-cular biologist is developing a papaya variety that has a high level of resistance to a deadly pest and increasing the prospect of increased supply of the vitamin A-rich fruit at cheaper prices in the local market.

Scientist Pierriden Perez recently concluded experiments at Malaysia’s MARDI Biotechnology Center to develop special papayas that are resistance to the ringspot virus, the worst scourge of the fruit in the Philippines and other tropical countries.

Perez has returned to the country with some 200 plantlets of the biotech papaya variety, which are now ready for testing in a local greenhouse. The greenhouse is a special facility jointly set up by the UP Los Baños, the DOST-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resour-ces Research Development (DOST-PCCARD) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications.

Perez said his experiments on bio-tech papaya is a response to the current sad state of the fruit crop in the country today. He said the fruit used to be plen-tiful in major papaya farms in Cavite, Ba-tangas and Laguna before they were deci-mated by the deadly papaya ringspot virus.

Mindanao is relatively safe from the dreaded virus, but studies showed that Mindanao’s most important commer-cial papaya variety, the Davao solo, is susceptible to the plague.

Perez was reportedly inspired by the success of Hawaii, which earlier developed a virus-resistance papaya variety. The va-riety, however, is resistance only to the Ha-waiian strain. Due to this limitation, he said Southeast Asian biotech scientists have col-laborated in the use of biotech for their own respective papayas, which shall be tested for resistance against local virus strains.

At present, the Philippine government is looking at the application of modern biotechnology to other major crops. Among these is a corn variety that is naturally resistant to the dreaded Asiatic corn borer.

The variety, internationally known as YieldGard, has undergone tests in various trial farms in Luzon and Minda-nao. Early results showed that the variety could yield 10-40 percent more than traditional corn varieties while using much less insecticide.

The natural high resistance to the Asia-tic corn borer was made possible by the transfer of superior genes to the plant strain using the laboratory techniques of biotechnology.