Magnaporthe grisea, rice blast

Taxonomic lineage

cellular organisms - Eukaryota - Fungi/Metazoa group - Fungi - Dikarya - Ascomycota - Pezizomycotina - Sordariomycetes - Sordariomycetes incertae sedis - Magnaporthaceae - Magnaporthe - Magnaporthe grisea

Brief facts

Magnaporthe grisea is a filamentous ascomycete, which causes rice blast disease.

Rice blast is the most serious disease of cultivated rice and therefore poses a threat to the world's most important food security crop. Losses of US$55 billions are estimated in South and Southeast Asia each year due to this pathogen.

In addition to rice, M. grisea causes disease on a wide variety of alternative hosts, including barley, wheat and millet (Eleusine coracana).

Blast was first reported in Asia more than three centuries ago and is now present in over 85 countries. It is highly adaptable to environmental conditions and can be found in irrigated lowland, rain-fed upland, or deepwater rice fields - virtually everywhere the rice is grown.

Blast can survive on seeds and can easily move over borders if proper safety checks are not in place. In 1996 in California, USA, despite the enforcement of strict safety measures to prevent the entry of blast, the disease managed to find its way into the state’s paddy fields for the first time.