Diagnostic kits help in rehab of banana sector

The rehabilitation program of the country’s beleaguered banana industry has been receiving booster shots through the diagnostic kits developed by a government institute.

Likewise, a collaborative work with DA regulatory agencies on the rehabilitation of the similarly-situated abaca industry is on stream.

Providing the silver linings of the hitherto gloomy banana and abaca industries and related concerns are the 22 plant and food/feed diagnostic kits so far developed by the UPLB-National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (UPLB-BIOTECH).

Dr. Teresita Espino, BIOTECH director, discussed the values of the kits at a recent technology forum convened by the DA Bureau of Agricultural Research.

She averred that the environmentally safe, easy-to-use, and rapid diagnostic kits can provide R&D and academic institutions and quality control laboratories with an effective tool for detecting plant, feed, and food pathogens (causative agents of a disease) and mycotoxin (a poisonous or toxic substance produced by a fungus).

A kit specifically allows farmers, food manufacturers, traders, and feed millers to rapidly screen their products for mycotoxin contamination before food/feed formulation, marketing, and consumption.

The plant diagnostic kits developed by BIOTECH with funding assistance from supporters, notably DA-BAR, were those for diseases affecting banana, abaca, papaya, corn, potato, citrus, mango, cucumber, and flowering plants (anthurium, cymbidium).

The food/feed diagnostic kits developed were those on red tide toxin, aflatoxin, zearalenone, and Fumonissin BI.

Dr. Espino said the kits can detect disease infection fast even in the absence of symptoms. Moreover, their cost is much cheaper than those or imported ones. – RAF