Quarantine officers in the China's southern city of Guangzhou have detected a plant-destroying microbe in some 57,000 tons of soybeans imported from the United States.

Sources with the Guangzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau confirmed on Thursday they had seized more than 57,000 tons of soybeans infested with phytophthora sojae, a notorious microbe responsible for soy rot, which is estimated to cause at least US$100 million in damages to soybean crops in the United States each year.

The officers said they had destroyed the soybeans to avoid spread of the pathogen.

This is the fifth P. sojae-infested cargo the southern port city has seized since the beginning of 2003.

The fungus-like microbe is closely related to algae and can be killed in high temperature. The name Phytophthora means "plant devourer" in Greek.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2004)