Though India’s wheat crop is seen vulnerable to ‘Ug99’, a devastating strain of black stem rust fungus that has emerged from Uganda in recent years, it does not face any immediate threat from the disease, said Ronnie Coffman, lead scientist and Vice-Chairman at the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI).
Coffman is among the 400-odd top global wheat scientists from 47 countries who will congregate in New Delhi next week to deliberate on the challenges in protecting the global wheat supply from the stem rust and yellow rust diseases.
“There is no immediate danger from Ug99 disease to India. However, its spread will depend predominantly on air flow pattern and wind currents blowing from the West – especially from Yemen into South Asia,” Coffman said at a curtain raiser ahead of the four-day technical workshop organised by BGRI and the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR). The air-flow pattern needs to be monitored on regular basis and a surveillance system is in place in most wheat-growing countries, including India.
BGRI will also commemorate the 50th anniversary of Norman Borlaug’s introduction of high-yielding wheat varieties in India. Borlaug visited India in 1963 and triggered a wheat revolution. India’s wheat production, which stood at only 12 million tonnes in 1963 has grown to over 92 million tonnes in 2013.
Ug99 or stem rust was detected in Iran in 2009, but the spread of fungus was contained by deploying resistant varieties. It is the most feared disease for wheat and can slash crop yields by over 70 per cent. Coffman said stem rust could act like a “biological firestorm” turning fields of wheat into blackened stubble with no grain.
“We are closer to our goal of protecting global wheat crop from rust disease but the vast wheat growing region that stretches across North Africa all the way to India and China is still vulnerable,” Coffman said.
In India, another form of rust – known as yellow rust or stripe rust – exists, but the impact has been rather limited. “Last year, yellow rust affected the crop planted on about three million hectares, but there was no crop loss,” said Indu Sharma, Director of the Karnal-based Directorate of Wheat Research.
She said that anticipatory contingency plans had been chalked out aiming at immediate and long-term strategies to manage stripe rust along with leaf rust and stem rust.