New fungus threat to wheat crops in Pakistan and India

[Naveed Yaseen]

KARACHI (June 16 2009): US scientists are trying to develop wheat strains resistant to a fungus that has spread from Africa to Iran, and is likely to show up soon in India and Pakistan. The 'Ug99' fungus, also known as 'stem rust', is likely to spread world-wide, either through windblown spores or carried inadvertently by people, food industry analysts said.

"It's a time bomb," Jim Peterson, an expert on wheat genetics at Oregon State University in Corvallis, was quoted as saying by US daily The Los Angeles Times. "It moves in the air; it can move in clothing on an airplane. We know it's going to be here. It's a matter of how long it's going to take." Stem rust is a longtime bane of wheat farmers, and afflicted wheat's wild ancestors before that. The United States has had major outbreaks of fungus, most recently in 1962 when more than 5 percent of the crop was killed.

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