Researcher Lee Hadwiger has an idea that he believes could play a major role in the future of world hunger.

Hadwiger, a longtime professor and plant pathologist at WSU, published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Phytopathology this month explaining his idea of how to trigger a plants natural defense mechanism to viruses, bacteria, fungi and other pathogens in its environment.

The defense response comes from a common trait called non-host resistance (NHR). Without the trait, plants would easily succumb to the numerous pathogens all around them. Courtesy of Lee HadwigerLee Hadwiger conducted research for plant immune system defense mechanisms.

If you just take Palouse soil and put a plant in there, its got a lot of fungi and bacteria already in there that the plant has to deal with, he said. Some of the newer crops, like chickpeas, seem to be more susceptible to a lot of stuff in the soil, so its a real problem.

Hadwigers article details his work with pea pods, showing that certain fungal DNase enzymes proteins that spur changes within DNA can activate the defense response before the diseases take hold and destroy the plants.

The concept could save countless yields of crops from destruction each year, he said.

Hadwiger worked with his colleague Jim Polashock, a New Jersey-based plant pathologist with the U.S. Department of Agricultures Agricultural Research Service, to demonstrate how to trigger the NHR defense response in pea plants by using bakers yeast. One of Hadwigers students recently activated the defense response in a tobacco plant with a fungal DNase enzyme, as well.

Most people didnt realize that these DNases could trigger this response and that they were present in all of the fungi, Hadwiger said.

The prevailing methods of disease control in agriculture target specific diseases, but the pathogens evolve to find ways around the resistance in a matter of about seven years, Hadwiger said. However, he sees triggering the NHR defense as more of a permanent solution.

But Hadwigers idea needs to conquer one big hurdle before it can achieve widespread adoption in the agricultural community: the public must become more comfortable with consuming genetically modified food.

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