April 21, 2014 – Life just got more interesting. A fast-spreading wheat rust has scoured farmers’ fields from Africa to Latin America, the Middle East and Europe. Wheat is the world’s second most important grain crop, after rice. This modern epidemic began in North America’s wheat belt back in the 1950s, when the fungus that causes wheat rust destroyed 40 percent of the crop. Since that time it has traveled to other parts of the world. In response, rust-resistant varieties of wheat were developed. A new era dawned in 1999, when an outbreak in Uganda was found to be the result of a virulent mutation of the wheat rust fungus. According to Dr. David Hodson of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Addis Ababa, the mutation causes “large-scale destruction in a very short period of time over very large cultivated areas.” The speed with which the fungus spreads can be likened to a forest fire, says Hodson. ...
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