Ravi Singh, head scientist of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), announced recently that a gene complex has been developed that should make wheat crops resistant to the deadly new stem rust fungus Ug99. This fungus has the potential to seriously damage the world's food supplies, and has spread from Uganda into Iran, India and is threatening southern Asia.
The problem stems from the 1960s, when scientists at CIMMYT developed high-yielding wheat varieties that contained three stem rust-resistant genes that simply killed any spores that attempted to attack the plant. This has meant any naturally resistant fungi survive, and then thrive as all the other fungus are killed off. This has led to the desperate development of new strains of wheat in order to battle the emerging fungus.
In a year an emergency breeding program attempting to cross-breed the fungal resistance with high yielding crops has led to the development of a new wheat variety called Kingbird. Testing in fungus-affected parts of Africa have found that it is both resistant and produces more wheat than previous varieties.
The only problem now is ensuring there is enough seed of the resistant variety to enable farmers in danger areas, such as Bangladesh, to replant their fields. Estimations suggest it will be two to three years before there is enough seed to safeguard the crops of the countries in the path of the fungus. Until then, it's all up to luck to see if the spores will spread any further into Asia.
By Duncan Munro
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127004.800-resistant-wheat-to-tackle-destructive-fungus.html
