Wheat Stem Rust on the Rampage

Thanks to a tweet from the Kamoun Lab (which was itself a retweet from someone else) the mycotwitterverse (why aren’t you in it?) got the heads up on Red Menace: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation by Brendan I. Koerner, now appearing on the web and in the March 2010 print edition of the ubercool and informative Wired magazine:

Stem rust is the polio of agriculture, a plague that was brought under control nearly half a century ago as part of the celebrated Green Revolution. After years of trial and error, scientists managed to breed wheat that contained genes capable of repelling the assaults of Puccinia graminis, the formal name of the fungus.

But now it’s clear: The triumph didn’t last. While languishing in the Ugandan highlands, a small population of P. graminis evolved the means to overcome mankind’s most ingenious genetic defenses. This distinct new race of P. graminis, dubbed Ug99 after its country of origin (Uganda) and year of christening (1999), is storming east, working its way through Africa and the Middle East and threatening India and China.

It is a highly readable, entertaining and informative article.  Ug99 is a particularly worrisome strain of this devastating stem rust fungus, and it is great to see a high-profile mag like Wired calling attention to it.

The latest on Ug99:

Getting rust out of Africa

USDA stem rust website (sadly, a bit out of date)

Action plan to minimize impact of Ug99 stem rust in the United States (PDF)

Summary Slides of Ug99’s Spread and Areas of Vulnerability (PDF)

A variety of documents on Ug99 can be found at this ARS USDA website.

What stem rust (Courtesy of U.S. Federal Government)