India has joined the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) to fight against the invasion of the dangerous stem rust race – Ug99 and its variants – on the major staple crop, wheat. Apart from India, the global research body for wheat and maize – CIMMYT, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the FAO and Kenya are the permanent members of BGRI executive committee.

BGRI is named after the Nobel Laureate and the father of the green revolution, Norman E Borlaug.

Historically, stem rust of wheat has been the most destructive disease of wheat and barley and has inflicted very heavy losses worldwide, sometimes to the tune of more than 40% in America.

The organism is a fungus called Puccinia graminis tritici. Ug99 was initially detected in Uganda in 1989 and the race was confirmed in 1999. Ug99 and the related races have evolved and multiplied and have spread to Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen and Iran. However, Ug99 is not present in India, Pakistan, China and Egypt.

An international conference on wheat stem rust Ug 99 organised by ICAR and FAO, which concluded in Delhi on November 8, called upon wheat producing nations to jointly fight the menace of Ug99. Earlier, the SAARC agriculture ministers’ conference in Delhi also urged South Asian nations to combat the incidence of Ug99.

Scientists and breeders across the world are transferring Sr genes from different varieties of wheat to combat the incidence of Ug99 and its variants. As Ug99 is not prevalent in India, the Directorate of Wheat Research, an affiliate of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) began testing the resistance mechanisms against Ug99 at Njoro in Kenya since 2005 and screened 442 wheat materials. These tests showed that many India wheat varieties were resistant to Ug99, said ICAR director-general, Mangla Rai.

Subsequently, recent screening of 318 Indian wheat lines at the Kenya Agriculture Research Institute revealed that 78 genotypes were resistant to Ug99. The prominent among them are DL 788-2, VL 404, NI 5439, Lok 1, COW (W) 1, HI 977, HS 295, HUW 234 among the bread wheat and among durum wheat, the resistant varieties are A9-30-1, AKDW 2997-16, Bijaga Yellow, WH 896, HD 4672, MACS 1967, MACS 2846 and NIDW 295. Varieties like DDK 1029 and NP 200 were found to be resistant ones amongst dicocoums. The Triticale variety TL 2942 was also found to be resistant to Ug99.

Some of the varieties found resistant in earlier screenings have now found to be susceptible to some new variant of Ug99, thus highlighting the importance of screening in the hot-spot at Kenya. However, four Indian wheat varieties – HD 2781, DL 153-2, NI 5439 and HI 8498(d) – have reconfirmed their resistance to Ug99.

The Directorate of Wheat Research under ICAR has released 450 tonne of breeder seeds of 11 wheat varieties resistant to Ug99 during 2007-08.

Under the BGRI network, CIMMYT has collaborated to put up a stem rust screening facility at Njoro in Kenya. A full time research team on wheat stem rust, assisted by the project on Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat and coordinated by Cornell University, provides the necessary technical support to facilitate and screen advanced wheat materials with potential for their resistance to Ug99 or its variants.