The Rice Blast International Consortium has deciphered the genome of the rice plant's greatest fungal menace.

Lee Yong-hwan, one of the chief researchers in the project, on Thursday said the international consortium has discovered the DNA sequence of the rice blast fungus, which has seven chromosomes and eleven thousand-109 genomes.

The study is expected to help the development of environment-friendly pesticides or strains resistant to rice blast fungi, which destroys about 10 percent of the world's rice harvests every year.

The study appeared Thursday in the latest edition of Nature magazine.