Viruses 'could impair biofuel composition'

Biofuel composition can be impacted upon by viruses capable of diminishing the yield of a particular crop, suggests the University of Illinois.

Earlier this week, scientists from the academic institution suggested making greater use of grass in biofuel composition to help leave cereal crops such as corn for use in food.

Now, however, Bright Agindotan, a research associate working at the Energy Biosciences Institute, has detected a previously unknown virus in Illinois biofuel switchgrass crops.

The virus is a variation on a known corn infection, Maize rayado fino virus (MRFV), seen in Mexico and central and southern American regions.

Although the switchgrass variation is not the exact same MRFV strain, it is similar and has been detected in up to 30 per cent of the Illinois crops studied.

Mr Agindotan achieved this using sequence-independent amplification of RNA to pick out single viruses in plants with numerous different infections - something never done before in the study of floral diseases.