UKM and FGV R&D collaborate to prevent palm oil tree disease

0
2435
Noor Azlan (left) exchanging agreement with Head of R&D and Agri Services Cluster of FGV, Syed Salim Syed Ali. PIX/Shahiddan Saidi

Bangi: Researchers from UKM’s Biology System Institute (INBIOSIS) will be collaborating with Felda Global Ventures (FGV) Research and Development (R&D) Sdn Bhd in conducting a study on oil palm plant disease prevention.

The high impact research project is titled “Development of stimulatory microbial metabolites and optimisation of beneficial microbes against Ganoderma: Towards understanding the plant-diseases interaction and improved control protocols.”

UKM Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dato’ Seri Dr Noor Azlan Ghazali said the research aims to develop trigger antibiotic residues and antibiotic that could potentially increase the production of metabolite-bearing and thus produce microbial agents bio-control and bio-fertilise that have the potential to be commercialised.

“FGV R&D Sdn Bhd allocated RM150, 000 for the two-year research project.

“UKM’s research team will be led by Dr Syarul Nataqain Baharum who is the Head of Plant Biotechnology and Genome Technology Analysis Research Centre.

“The research group will undertake the metabolomics using Metabolomics Module developed by the INBIOSIS metabolomics group,” he said.

He hopes other collaboration will follow suit to give opportunity for other researchers to be involved.―UKM News Portal