Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam has become the first Southeast Asian nation to successfully create a disease-resistant tomato plant.

The plant is the result of a project on studying and applying grafting methods to prevent tomato plants from withering due to ralstonia solanacearum bacterium conducted by scientists from the southern Agriculture Science and Technique Institute.

The project has won first prize at the eighth national technology initiative contest recently held in Ha Noi.

Dr Ngo Quang Vinh, head of the scientists’ group, said withering in tomato plants spreads very fast by ralstonia solanacearum bacterium. The bacterium makes tomatoes green and the death rate of plants is usually 30 percent, sometimes 100 percent.

During 2002-2004, the group created a new disease-resistant tomato plant by grafting the NT386 tomato variety onto another ordinary tomato plant to create a disease-resistant tomato variety, Vinh noted.

This technology will help grow tomato plants in the rainy season, the scientist announced.