30/03/10

The race is on to stop the red menace fungus: Ug99

Ug99, a deadly fungus, causes stem rust on wheat crops threatening food security in developing countries Copyright: USDA_Cereal_Disease_Lab

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>The race is on to stop the red menace fungus: Ug99</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><span>As Ug99, the deadly stem rust-causing fungus blighting African wheat, marches eastward, scientists across the globe are scrambling for ways to outsmart it.</span></p>
<p><span>First discovered in Uganda 12 years ago, Ug99 has since snowballed, through Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and, now,  Yemen. </span></p>
<p><span>"I look at Yemen as the gateway into the Middle East, into Asia," says David Hodson of the Food and Agriculture Organization.</span></p>
<p><span>Indeed, fears are rife that Ug99 is headed for the Punjab, South Asia’s most important breadbasket, which feeds hundreds of millions.</span></p>
<p><span>Researchers are trying to develop wheat strains that contain insurmountable genetic barriers for the fungus. But the fungus is mutating, enabling it to overcome the barriers put up by resistant genes in today’s crops. Four variants of Ug99 are able to "knock out" such resistance genes.</span></p>
<p><span>In Njoro, Kenya, wheat breeders are working on promising wheat varieties in the hope that one of them can outwit Ug99. And a two-year project to sequence the fungus genome hopes to identify the specific wheat-destroying genes so that new breeds of wheat can be screened for Ug99 resistance.</span></p>
<p><span>More far-fetched dreams include the insertion of genes that can scramble Ug99 spores’ "topographical sense" so that they cannot burrow into wheat.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_ug99_fungus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span>Link to full article in <em>Wired</em></span></a></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/features/the-race-is-on-to-stop-the-red-menace-fungus-ug99/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/features/the-race-is-on-to-stop-the-red-menace-fungus-ug99/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

As Ug99, the deadly stem rust-causing fungus blighting African wheat, marches eastward, scientists across the globe are scrambling for ways to outsmart it.

First discovered in Uganda 12 years ago, Ug99 has since snowballed, through Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and, now, Yemen.

"I look at Yemen as the gateway into the Middle East, into Asia," says David Hodson of the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Indeed, fears are rife that Ug99 is headed for the Punjab, South Asia’s most important breadbasket, which feeds hundreds of millions.

Researchers are trying to develop wheat strains that contain insurmountable genetic barriers for the fungus. But the fungus is mutating, enabling it to overcome the barriers put up by resistant genes in today’s crops. Four variants of Ug99 are able to "knock out" such resistance genes.

In Njoro, Kenya, wheat breeders are working on promising wheat varieties in the hope that one of them can outwit Ug99. And a two-year project to sequence the fungus genome hopes to identify the specific wheat-destroying genes so that new breeds of wheat can be screened for Ug99 resistance.

More far-fetched dreams include the insertion of genes that can scramble Ug99 spores’ "topographical sense" so that they cannot burrow into wheat.

Link to full article in Wired