Only a few wheat scientists around the world are focused on developing wheat strains that can resist three fungal diseases – known as stem, leaf and stripe rust – that are capable of causing huge crop losses, says a University of Minnesota professor. Phil Pardey told The Land, an Australian newspaper, “I was shocked to learn that globally we got down to literally half a dozen scientists who actively focused their research on that problem.” Pardey spoke at the International Wheat Conference in Sydney.
One of the major threats to wheat at present is the Ug99 stem rust, found in 13 countries in Africa and the Middle East. In some cases, Ug99 can cause a total loss of the crop. Wheat is one of the staple crops of the world. Wheat, corn and rice provide roughly 60 percent of the world’s food energy intake, according to FAO.
Two-thirds of the wheat in the world is grown in climates where the three rusts could flourish. International researchers are beginning to introduce wheat varieties bred for resistance to Ug99.
Pardey told The Land that more investment was needed to monitor and characterize the evolution of the rust diseases and for work to identify genes that confer resistance and that would be used in breeding programs.