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 Combating stem rust: Uganda pest should give us food for thought
19 July 2010 - Guardian (UK)
A lethal stem rust has spread to southern Africa's wheat crop. The fungus, identified in Uganda in 1999 and called Ug99, is a new contender in the long hot war between plant breeders and plant pests. Stem rust is an old enemy, but until Ug99 turned up, plant breeders had thought they were in the ascendant. The spread of yet another destructive element – along with drought, flood, locusts, windstorm and rising fuel costs – in the challenges that face the African farmer is a reminder of several things. (PDF version of article) |
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 Wheat rust and world farming
01 July 2010 - The Economist
It is sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in a decade. It is now camped at the gates of one of the world’s breadbaskets, Punjab. In June scientists announced the discovery of two new strains in South Africa, the most important food producer yet infected... (PDF version of article) |
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 Red Menace: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation
22 February 2010 - Wired
As they queue to fill water jugs from a rusty communal tap, the women of Njoro can’t help but gawk at the odd scene across the road. In a wheat field ringed by barbed wire, a dozen men wearing white polyethylene jumpsuits stand in a tight huddle, eyes fixed on the green-and-amber stalks that graze their knees. They chat in foreign tongues — Urdu, Farsi, Chinese — that are rarely heard here amid the acacia trees and donkey carts of Kenya’s Rift Valley. The men’s hazmat-style safety gear suggests they might be hunting down one of the infamous viruses that flourish in this part of the world — Ebola, perhaps, or Marburg. (PDF version of article) |
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 Significant Work Still Needed to Really Crack Wheat’s Genetic Code
31 August 2010 - International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium
The International Wheat Genome Sequence Consortium (IWGSC), an international consortium of wheat growers, public and private breeders and scientists, strongly disagrees with implications that the sequence reads made available by a UK team, led by Professor Neil Hall, represent in any way the sequence of the wheat genome or that this work is comparable to genome sequences for rice, maize, or soybean. |
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 The Price of Wheat
27 August 2010 - New York Times
Agricultural experts say they’re not worried about the recent jump in wheat prices, caused largely by the drought in Russia and the ban on Russian wheat exports. The Department of Agriculture is predicting that world wheat production will reach the same level this year — 645 million metric tons — that helped bring prices down from their astonishing $13.50 a bushel peak in February 2008. At present, prices for December wheat are about $6.95 a bushel, down over 50 cents from a month ago, but up nearly 55 percent since early June... |
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 Genome breakthrough heralds new dawn for agriculture
27 August 2010 - Independent (UK)
In a scientific tour-de-force that has been hailed as the most significant breakthrough in wheat production since the cereal crop was cultivated by the first farmers more than 10,000 years ago, scientists have decoded the genome of the wheat plant... |
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 Cereal rust epidemic on its way to NSW
24 August 2010 - ABC Rural (Australia)
Leaf Rust, stem rust and stripe rust have been causing grain growers headaches for years now... |
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 Stem Rust: In Crop Management
24 August 2010 - Grains Research Development Corporation (Australia)
This fact sheet provides specific information on the in-crop management of stem rust in wheat... |
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 Scientists Mobilize to Protect Wheat from Mutating Stripe Rust
23 August 2010 - Suite101.com
Ug99 is getting most of the attention, but there is another very dangerous cereal killer on the prowl –Puccinia striiformis, more commonly known under the aliases of stripe rust or yellow rust... |
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 SYRIA: Yellow wheat rust hits supplies
19 August 2010 - IRIN
Farmers in Syria already hit by a three-year drought are now experiencing a yellow wheat rust outbreak, which has caused widespread crop losses as well as shrivelled seeds... |
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 India Doesn’t Share World’s Wheat Worries
12 August 2010 - Wall Street Journal
India is struggling with too much wheat while the rest of the world is anticipating a shortage. Rising global wheat prices triggered by the crippling drought in Russia and the nation’s export ban have sparked a world-wide scramble to secure wheat supplies and raised concerns there could be a new bout of food inflation. India is well insulated from the global wheat crisis because it produces more wheat than it consumes and it has a ban on exporting the grain... |
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 India develops 22 wheat varieties resistant to Ug99 disease
10 August 2010 - Yahoo! India
India, the world's second biggest wheat producer, has developed 22 wheat varieties, which are resistant to the deadly Ug99 fungal disease. "During the course of our research we found that certain varieties developed by us were already resistant to this fungus... |
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 IRAQ: Wheat rust infection fears
10 August 2010 - IRIN Middle East
More than a tenth of Iraq’s 2009-2010 wheat crop has been infected by a killer fungus, according to authorities. While the strain of wheat rust is not as virulent as the mutant Ug99, infection rates have climbed steeply since last year because of warmer weather and higher temperatures, said Hameed Mohammed Jawad, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s crops protection department... |
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