Eurovanille Invests in Research for the Development of a Sustainable Vanilla Supply Chain

07 Apr 2016 --- The global vanilla market, essentially constituted of small holders, is facing important agronomic constraints. Diseases affecting vanilla vines are becoming serious threats to the production. Presently, no real curative practice is available against several of these diseases, notably rot-stem rot.

Research addressing these major difficulties is still limited to a few laboratories, and it needs support from the vanilla industrial sector.

Eurovanille, which represents 5% market share of the global vanilla market has chosen to support two major domains of this research in 2016 :

The establishment of the vanilla DNA sequence
The introduction of newly obtained resistant genotypes of Vanilla planifolia into contaminated soil

Mélanie Legris, Sales and Marketing Manager, told FoodIngredientsFirst about the importance of research of vanilla DNA: “We need to improve the culture condition for farmers and secure a good quality of vanilla crops. For an example, in 2012 in Madagascar the number of plantation were decreased a lot. The main cause of these decrease was a fungus attack (fusarium). With the work on vanilla DNA we expect to find gene loci involved in disease resistance. All this research will lead to a culture of sustainable vanilla,” she says.

“We can expect, in medium term, that the results will foster scientists and food industry to work in fundamental research to improve our knowledge about this spice and futures we can imagine to work on resistance plants with very interesting aromatic profile,” says Legris.

“The role of food industry like Eurovanille is to support the scientists in this sort of project which could have a lot of repercussion on the global market,” Legris adds.

The establishment of the vanilla DNA sequence

Eurovanille, in partnership with a consortium of french public laboratories and V. Mane Fils, is being associated to a project of sequencing the Vanilla planifolia genome.

Sequencing the genome is the starting point for a detailed understanding of the biology and agricultural practices for vanilla. This genomic characterization will be essential to carry out projects like breeding for resistance against the root and stem rot disease. For Eurovanille, this is an important challenge because these applications will, among other things, help to reduce the amount of pesticides being used; and thus process towards sustainable agricultural practices for growers.

Other genetic characters, such as variations in the flavor profiles will also be considered in the future.

The sequence will be made available to the scientific community via public data bases. This will help to increase global knowledge, and strengthen expertise.

The introduction of newly resistant genotypes of Vanilla planifolia into contaminated soil by Fusarium oxysporum f sp radicis-vanillae, the causal agent of root and stem rot disease.

Concomitantly, Eurovanille in partnership with CIRAD in Bourbon island, will test newly obtained resistant genotypes against root and stem rot disease in their vanilla plantation in Mauritius island. These genotypes have been bred by CIRAD in their research facilities in Bourbon island.

This combined research will help to speed up strategic research on Vanilla planifolia and its breeding programme. The results will be new. In the future, new bred genotypes with new flavor combinations, with extended and increase resistance to diseases will be offered to the market. The main objectives of Eurovanille are to provide long-term support to vanilla production and industry sectors.

by Elizabeth Kenward