Genome-edited rice shows resistance to bacterial blight in East Africa

The international Healthy Crops consortium has developed an innovative strategy to combat the disease bacterial blight (for short: BB) in rice using genome editing technology. If approved for use by farmers in Kenya, the BB-resistant rice varieties are expected to reduce yield losses associated with the disease in the affected rice growing regions and increase productivity. The work is a collaboration between Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU).