[Cid_Yama]

World Wheat Supply Threatened - More Virulent Ug99 confirmed
Ug99 is the most probable reason for decline in wheat production in Saudi Arabia. Ug99 reached Yemen 1 yr ago and has no doubt crossed into Saudi Arabia. link and link and link and link

When the story broke last April it was quashed immediately. It broke at an extremely inopportune time for the Ethanol lobby which was already under great pressure with regards to the food vs fuel debate. link

[Bas]

from your newscientist link:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction." Startling words - but spoken by the father of the Green Revolution, Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, they are not easily dismissed.

An infection is coming, and almost no one has heard about it. This infection isn't going to give you flu, or TB. In fact, it isn't interested in you at all. It is after the wheat plants that feed more people than any other single food source on the planet. And because of cutbacks in international research, we aren't prepared. The famines that were banished by the advent of disease-resistant crops in the Green Revolution of the 1960s could return, Borlaug told New Scientist.

The disease is Ug99, a virulent strain of black stem rust fungus (Puccinia graminis), discovered in Uganda in 1999. Since the Green Revolution, farmers everywhere have grown wheat varieties that resist stem rust, but Ug99 has evolved to take advantage of those varieties, and almost no wheat crops anywhere are resistant to it.

[cipi604]

thanks for info.

[Cid_Yama]

<b>World Wheat Supply Threatened</b>

Yue Jin, a plant pathologist at the Agricultural Research Service’s Cereal Disease Laboratory (CDL) in St. Paul, Minn., has confirmed that a new variant of the already virulent pathogen, Ug99, has occurred in Kenya, one that could broaden the disease’s reach to beyond the 80 percent of the world’s wheat already at risk.

All this is occurring at a low point in world wheat supplies. The Middle East and Asia’s 160-plus million acres of fields, which account for a quarter of the word’s annual wheat harvest, are in the direct path of the disease’s advance. And the spores of this fungal disease of plants could reach our continent sooner or later.

http://www.agriview.com/articles/2007/1 ... rops09.txt

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'U')g99 is the most probable reason for decline in wheat production in Saudi Arabia.

[Cid_Yama]

<i>In the cold war both the US and the Soviet Union stockpiled stem rust spores as a biological weapon.</i>

Perhaps TPTB are getting rid of a few billion in 'excess population'.

[wisconsin_cur]

Does anyone know if this rust can subsist in some other wild grasses? (ie is a problem for the foreseeable future or if we could quarentine it would we have a chance of irradicating it?

[Cid_Yama]

<b>Overpopulation and peak oil: The perfect storm</b>

In 1850, the world population lingered at 1 billion; in America it was 23 million. The world population is now closing in on 7 billion while here it nears 310 million. It was oil, and its cousin natural gas, that allowed the population to grow to unprecedented proportions as quickly as it did. As oil is depleted, it’s correct to assume the population will decrease proportionately.

In 1974, the government released a study (NSSM 200) that concluded the world population needed to be decreased drastically for humans to survive after peak oil without dire consequences. This was followed by the Carter administration’s Global 2000 document that said <i>an immediate goal of less than 2 billion worldwide is necessary</i>. Others suggest a world of no more than 500 million is more realistic.

http://cid-yama.livejournal.com/105441.html

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', '&')lt;i>In the cold war both the US and the Soviet Union stockpiled stem rust spores as a biological weapon.</i>

Perhaps TPTB are getting rid of a few billion in 'excess population'.

[Cid_Yama]

Even if 'They' didn't do it, there might be real incentive to let it run it's course.(of course, miraculously finding a resistant strain in a few years, just before it reaches the US).

[wisconsin_cur]

A primer on the cycle of normal wheat rust:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lternative hosts are not important in the leaf rust life cycle. Although some strains of the leaf rust fungus can survive on jointed goatgrass or wheatgrass, they appear to be different from the strains that attack cultivated

wheat. Many rusts have special alternate hosts for completion of the sexual cycle. Meadow rue (Thalictrum spp.) is the alternate host for wheat leaf rust in Eurasia. However, the sexual cycle on meadow rue apparently does not occur in North America. Therefore, the leaf rust population in the U.S. is composed of distinct races that do not cross with each other. This slows the development of new races because mutation is the only means of genetic change.

The leaf rust fungus can only survive in living leaf tissue. It is not soilborne or borne in crop residue. In the summer, it survives on volunteer wheat. In the fall, spores blow to newly planted wheat. Early planted wheat sometimes sustains heavy rust infection and may turn yellow in the fall. This does not seem to cause winterkill of the wheat. Leaf rust can survive the winter as latent infections if green leaves survive the winter. In the early spring, pustules erupt and fresh spores blow to new leaves. If rust does not survive through the winter in Kansas, spores eventually blow up from Oklahoma or Texas. However, the delay often reduces the final severity of the disease. The rust fungus moves back to volunteer wheat around harvest time.

Leaf rust epidemic severity increases exponentially over time. That's why rust epidemics appear to suddenly "explode" during favorable weather. Rust development in the spring is favored by daytime temperatures between 60 and 75F. The infection process requires moisture, which can be provided by rain or dew. Heavy rain is unfavorable for rust because it tends to wash the spores off the leaves. Infection can occur in as little as four hours during favorable weather. Dispersal of spores to upper leaves and between fields is favored by dry, windy conditions.

[WisJim]

Wasn't a major part of the "green revolution" to get farmers to use fewer varieties of food crops, and to pump up production with fertilizers and pesticides?? In other words, to quite using their saved seed and buy hybrids from the Western countries? I usually think of rice and all of the varieties of rice that may have been grown only in a small specific location, that may have been lost over the years because of the introduction of "better" varieties.

Is this what has also happened with wheat, and we are getting our just rewards??

The historic Irish potato famine comes to mind, which was disasterous primarily because the potatoes grown in Ireland at the time were so similar genetically.

[Cid_Yama]

<i>Ug99 has got worse. It was first noticed because it started appearing on wheat previously protected by a gene complex called Sr31, the backbone of stem rust resistance in most wheat farmed worldwide. Then last year it acquired the ability to defeat another widely used complex, Sr24. "Of the 50 genes we know for resistance to stem rust, only 10 work even partially against Ug99," says Ward. Those are present in less than 1 per cent of the crop.

Ug99 has another ace up its sleeve. The spores blowing in the wind now are from the asexual stage that grows on wheat. If any blow onto the leaves of its other host, the barberry bush (Berberis vulgaris), they will change into the sexual form and swap genes with whatever other stem rusts they find. Barberry is native to west Asia. "As if it wasn't challenging enough breeding varieties that resist this thing," laments Ward. "All I know is that what blows into Iran will not be the same as what blows out."</i>

Doesn't sound good, and another bad thing from the Green Revolution:

<i>"Forty years ago most wheat wasn't irrigated and heavily fertilised," says Borlaug. Now, thanks to the Green Revolution he helped bring about, it is. That means modern wheat fields are a damper, denser thicket of stems, where dew can linger till noon - just right for fungus.</i>

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', '&')lt;i>In the cold war both the US and the Soviet Union stockpiled stem rust spores as a biological weapon.</i>

Perhaps TPTB are getting rid of a few billion in 'excess population'.

[Cid_Yama]

'Round-up ready' just means it can be planted in acreage previously cleared with Round-up. If Monsanto knew how to genetically modify wheat to resist this, they would. It WOULD be worth big money. How to do it IS the billion dollar question. Currently, all genes known to impart rust resistance don't work against this stuff.

[dinopello]

What does this mean then?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')heat that is tolerant to the common herbicide Roundup (active ingredient glyphosate) has been developed by the Monsanto Company using biotechnology. Wheat plants that are tolerant to glyphosate application also have very good resistance to leaf rust when the glyphosate is sprayed on the plants for a period of up to three weeks prior to exposure to leaf rust infections. The resistance to leaf rust is due to the application of glyphosate, and not due to other compounds present in Roundup. Given these results and evidence from the literature that glyphosate can have adverse effects on other pathogens, including other rust fungi, additional investigation of the fungicidal properties of glyphosate are warranted, with particular attention to the timing of glyphosate application relative to fungal infection.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', '[')url=http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=177506]What does this mean then?[/url]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')heat that is tolerant to the common herbicide Roundup (active ingredient glyphosate) has been developed by the Monsanto Company using biotechnology. Wheat plants that are tolerant to glyphosate application also have very good resistance to leaf rust when the glyphosate is sprayed on the plants for a period of up to three weeks prior to exposure to leaf rust infections. The resistance to leaf rust is due to the application of glyphosate, and not due to other compounds present in Roundup. Given these results and evidence from the literature that glyphosate can have adverse effects on other pathogens, including other rust fungi, additional investigation of the fungicidal properties of glyphosate are warranted, with particular attention to the timing of glyphosate application relative to fungal infection.

[Cid_Yama]

Different topic, problem isn't resistance to fungicides. Wheat rust can be killed with fungicides. Not an effective solution.

The only reason the world has been able to grow anywhere near the amount of wheat it does is because, for the last 40 yrs, the wheat being grown was resistant to rust.

<i>The first line of defence is fungicide, but the poor farmers who stand to lose most from the blight generally cannot afford it, or don't have the equipment or know-how to apply it. CIMMYT is considering "fire brigade" spray teams armed with cheap, generic fungicides in poor areas. However, they will be competing with the rich for fungicide, and depending on where Ug99 strikes, stocks could be limited.

Even rich countries face problems. The US has been fighting soybean rust with fungicide ever since spores blew in on hurricane Ivan in 2004. If Ug99 arrives as well, the US could be in trouble because it doesn't make enough fungicide for both crops. Ultimately, says Ward, the only real answer "is to get new, resistant varieties out there".</i>

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', '[')b]Actually doesn't their "Roundup-Ready" wheat already address this fungus problem? Or is the fungus you guys are talking about resistant to Roundup?

[Cid_Yama]

<b>Israeli Wheat species may be salvation from Ug99</b>

A native Israeli wheat species is the likely botanic "antidote" to a new fungus strain that threatens 70 percent of the world's wheat crops and is relentlessly moving north from Africa. It is already in Yemen and if prediction models are correct, the fungus may enter Israel soon.

Sharon goatgrass (Aegilops sharonensis), which grows on Israel's coastal plain and a few places in Lebanon and is a distant relative of cultivated bread wheat, is highly resistant to the fungus, called Ug99.

The Israeli and American scientists are collecting more of the species for long-term storage in a TAU gene bank. As for the current threat posed by Ug99, the solution will not come overnight. Eitan Millet, a TAU wheat geneticist, said "transferring Ug99 resistance from Sharon goatgrass into wheat is a long and laborious project <i>requiring five or more years</i> of work."

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enS ... o=Articles^l1737