A plant vaccine for cucumbers is finally produced in Japan.
Cucumbers become ill. There is a virus called Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (ZYMV) which attacks cucurbits, including cucumbers and courgette. If cucumber plants contract it, their fruits deform and become unmarketable. The cost of the disease in Japan is estimated to be over 5billion yen ($56million).
To prevent the damage to cucumbers by ZYMV, a group consisting of two Japanese agricultural experts and one biological company developed and produced a new plant vaccine in 2009. It is made up of attenuated ZYMV, which can persist over a long period. After adding stabiliser to it, they used vacuum freeze drying to turn the substance into a pharmaceutical product. Their drug became the first plant vaccine to pass Japan’s agricultural pharmaceutical tests.
Although there are some similar vaccines worldwide, none of which, the group says, are as good as theirs. If its sales grow in Japan, its market will expand there. Then, it is time that the group tried their “excellent” vaccine abroad.
Ryo Kubota is a staff writer at Transpheric Management in Tokyo as well as a freelance writer. He has covered Sports for the Nippon Newspaper Company in Tokyo and teaches at a private tutoring school in Iruma, Japan. Having studied in both Tokyo and England in the areas of sociology, he has a keen interest in the world at large.
