The Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge, held in Ottawa, has got its youngest winner yet, after Rui Song, a 14 year old girl from Saskatoon won the first prize, at the competition.

Rui Song has deciphered a method of finding, whether a dangerous fungus that destroys the Lentil crop is present in the crop or not.

Lentil crop is a major agricultural export item and the findings of the experiment, can help in preventing damage to the crop, by early detection of fungus in the crops.

Rui Song explains that the infection caused by the fungus, can lessen the yield of the Lentil crop by half and also decrease the seed quality by 10%.

She has determined 50 out of the 2000 prospective genetic markers in the field and has thus given a breakthrough start for more thorough research by agriculture experts.

Dr. Denis Kay, who was one of the judges at the contest says, “This type of screening has not been done, and it's high time that someone did it. This initial phase of the investigation is really the groundbreaking work that's necessary to ultimately distinguish between the two types of fungus”.

Rui Song thanked her mentor, Dr. Sabine Banniza from the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, for her support in assisting Song with the experiment.

Now, the ninth grader at Walter Murray Collegiate in Saskatoon is all set to visit Chicago for an international contest to be held next week.