Bacterial Leaf blight (BLB), caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), is a devastating disease of rice crops in many countries of Asia and West Africa. In Madagascar, rice is the staple food grain. In this country where the consequences of climate change are dramatic and where periods of famine are not rare, rice production represents a major challenge for food security.

Together with colleagues from the FOFIFA (National Center for Applied Research in Rural Development) in Antsirabe, we observed in 2019 typical symptoms of BLB on 3 different fields within a radius of 30km. This disease had never been reported before in Madagascar and more widely in East Africa. Strains from these samples were isolated and their identity confirmed as Xoo. Since then, regular surveys allowed us to observe the dispersion of the disease in different geographical areas of the island and a sharp increase in incidence. The activities carried out over the past 3 years, the first results of phenotyping and genotyping and future perspectives will be presented during this seminar.