Milling Journal - Q2 2008 - (Page 34) Ug99 Means Misery for Wheat Virulent stem rust is on the move in Africa and Near East With high wheat prices and already low stockpiles of wheat, another threat is becoming ominous on the radar screen. Ug99, a virulent wheat stem rust discovered in 1999, has since traveled across East Africa to Iran, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). USDA-ARS scientists have determined that 80% of the HRS wheat grown in the United States Sally Backman is vulnerable to Ug99. When Ug99 was discovered in 1999 in Uganda, it was deemed capable of destroying most previously disease-resistant wheat varieties. Shortly after that, it was found in Kenya and Ethiopia. By early 2007, FAO scientists indicated that the wheat disease had jumped from East Africa to Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula and probably had spread into Sudan. Scientists also reported that the Ug99 Northern U.S. Wheat detected in Kenya had mutated from the one that originated in Uganda. In March 2008, the FAO reported that Ug99 had been spotted in Iran, which puts it at the door of major wheat-producing regions. The countries east of Iran, such as Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan—all major wheat producers—are most threatened by the fungus, FAO says. Why The Concern? So, why should this concern U.S. wheat producers and processors? The speed at which stem rust multiplies may give some perspective. A rust urediospore can germinate in less than an hour and send out a germ tube that can be inside the wheat plant in six hours or less, according to E.C. Stakman, a former University of Minnesota plant pathologist and the leading authority on wheat stem rust disease during the rust epidemics of the 1950s. With shocking speed, the rust tubes Ug99 stem rust infects wheat stalks with what scientists call shocking speed. will grow parasitically to produce a new crop of 50,000 to 450,000 urediospores within a week to ten days. As the scientific world came to understand the possibility of this impending calamity, the Global Rust Initiative was organized. It was later replaced by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI), “The new strains of stem rust are much more dangerous than those that, 50 years ago, destroyed as much as 20% of the American wheat crop.” Norman Borlaug Nobel Peace Prize recipient chaired by Dr. Borlaug, Nobel Prize winner and Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture, Department of 34 Second Quarter 2008 Response No. 341 MILLING JOURNAL http://www.vaaeng.com http://www.vaaeng.com
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