Take that, late blight!

Karina Vasquez talked to Ramón Puño this week about his graduation project.
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Ramón Puño is a twenty-six year old agronomy student who is researching late blight, Phytophthora infestans, a common fungus that affects tomato and potato crops, and destroyed potato crops during the Irish Potato Famine. His interest in saving crops from diseases such as late blight comes from his humble upbringing. He was born in the community of Caranavi, a town composed of farmers dependent on their seasonal crops. His parents are coffee and citrus farmers. Like many children born in Caranavi, he would have become a subsistence farmer like his father, surviving on his crops. Yet, as he explained to me, "most times the money you get from your crops doesn't do much."


Photo: Ramón and lab coordinator Andrez Flores examine late blight in the microscope.

As the eldest of six children, he tries very hard to be a role model for his siblings. When speaking about his parents there is a great smile across his face, since they are very proud of him and his effort to help farmers like his family save more of their crops. He is the first to attend a university in his family. Following in his steps is his younger brother Gonzalo, also an agronomy student.

Ramón's research focuses on how late blight affects tomato crops in this area. This fungus can spoil or stunt the growth of the crop, causing the farmer to loose the crop on which he relies to feed his family. He is trying to figure out a way to eliminate the fungus that affects these crops without chemicals that can be very toxic for the environment and for the farmers themselves. His strategy involves using secondary metabolites produced by other fungi isolated from the soil. Ramón worked with a researcher in the national university's Instituto de Investigaciones Fármaco-Bioquímicas in La Paz to produce and test these fungal extracts against the late blight fungus, and he found one that suppressed the disease completely in the lab. His next step is to test the extract on a tomato crop he is planting in Carmen Pampa. Support from conBolivia is helping make that possible.


Photo: Ramón works in the biochemistry lab in La Paz.

Rámon wants to use his education at the UAC to help farmers, like his family to have a better life and produce healthier crops. Rámon would like to further his education, especially working in the lab trying to find solutions to several fungal diseases that effect local crops.