Marco A. Marchetti

Research Plant Pathologist

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Dr. Marchetti has conducted research for 37 years in pathogenic specialization, inheritance of resistance, epidemiology and disease loss assessment in diseases of rice. He has been a member of the USDA-ARS rice varietal improvement team located at Beaumont since 1974, and has regional responsibilities for evaluating breeding lines and exotic germplasm for resistance to diseases of the Southern U.S., notably rice blast caused by Pyricularia grisea and sheath blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani. Dr. Marchetti's main research contributions are in the areas of varietal improvement for disease resistance, inheritance of blast resistance and characterization of dilatory (partial) resistance in U.S. rices, quantification of yield losses from sheath blight, and development of methodology for evaluating sheath blight resistance. He also collaborated with scientists at Purdue University in the first successful separation of blast fungus pathotypes into lineage groups by DNA fingerprinting. He has authored and co-authored some 130 scientific articles and presentations, and has presented papers and seminars on his rice disease research in the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, France, Uruguay and Egypt.