Research scientists have been given $13 million to try to rustproof Western Canada’s wheat crop.
The money will be used to develop wheat varieties that are resistant to Ug99, a potentially devastating stem rust disease that has been wreaking havoc in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
“It’s more a matter of when, not if, it will show up in North America,” said Tom Fetch, a plant pathologist at Agriculture Canada’s cereal research centre in Winnipeg and lead scientist in the Ug99 project.
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Stem rust is a highly destructive disease. The last outbreak in Canada in 1954 destroyed 40 percent of the spring wheat crop.
Named for its discovery in Uganda in 1999, the Ug99 pathogen can travel easily on the wind or travellers’clothes. It is active in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen, Sudan and Iran, where it has stalled because of dry weather.
Prevailing winds will likely carry it to Pakistan and India next, although it could also find its way north to Egypt and Turkey. Those countries may be far away, but Fetch said the disease can move and infect new areas quickly.
The $13 million comes from the federal-provincial Growing Forward program and will be available for five years ending in 2013.
The money will be spent at Agri-culture Canada research centres in Winnipeg, Swift Current, Lethbridge and Ottawa on upgrading facilities, buying new equipment and supplies, paying salary and hiring post-docs and summer students.
About 15 scientists will be involved in the project.
Fetch said the goal is to develop new resistant cultivars by identifying resistant genes, figuring out how to stack more than one gene to extend resistance and turning that material and information over to plant breeders.
He said work on Ug99 has been underway for several years from other funding sources, and two new sources of resistance have been identified and passed on to breeders.
While Ug99 can be treated with fungicide, Fetch said new resistant cultivars are the preferred way to go.
The work comes with a sense of urgency, he added.
“All of the major spring wheat cultivars farmers are using are sus-ceptible,” he said.
Only two licensed varieties – AC Cadillac and Peace – are resistant to Ug99 but neither is grown to any great extent and both have just single gene resistance.
Given the amount of work that has already been done, Fetch said the best-case scenario would see a new multiple resistance cultivar commercially available within five years.
