Stem rust fungus on wheatEVANS LAGUDAH, ZAKKIE PRETORIUSA recently emerged strain of the wheat-destroying fungus called stem rust is threatening 90 percent of the world’s domestic wheat varieties. But, according to two papers published online today (June 27) in Science, this fungal threat may soon be thwarted thanks to genes from hardy wheat relatives that resist the fungus.
“These are the first genes cloned that resist the Ug99 stem rust race that is threatening wheat crops worldwide,” said Bikram Gill, director of the Wheat Genetics Resource Center at Kansas State University in Manhattan, who was not involved in the research, “so it’s very exciting news.”
Domestic wheat varieties such as those made into bread and pasta provide a staggering 20 percent of the global populations’ calorie intake. But wheat has an enemy in the form of an orangey-red fungus that grows on its stems, ultimately killing the plant. This stem rust fungus has been effectively controlled in domestic wheat for the last 50 years thanks to crossbreeding with varieties containing resistance genes.
In Uganda in 1999, however, stem rust upped the ante. A ...
