RUST IN BREAD BASKET

The rust of agricultural crops sometimes called as "Polio of Agriculture" ,is becoming a terrifying disease ,spreading silently and speedily... in new and scary forms. Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici is the pathogen forming yellow coloured stripes on foliage of wheat plant, hampering photosynthetic activity and thus vigour which ultimately lead to shrivelled and poor quality grains. It has plagued crop of wheat for decades in one of the "food baskets" of world and "food bowl of India" i.e. Punjab. Yellow/Stripe rust of wheat has started achieving epiphytotic status in the northern part of India. It has now become a big challenge before plant pathologists and breeders to manage this disease in the region. Wheat rust once spurred the green revolution, the huge increase in crop yields that started in 1960's. Now it could threaten those great gains. Although Gadd(1777) first described stripe rust of wheat, it was not until 1896 that Eriksson and Henning (1896) showed that stripe rust resulted from a separate pathogen, which they named P. glumarum. In 1953, Hylander et al. (1953) revived the name P. striiformis. Since then it is appearing in different parts of the world in one or another form (which we call races for our convenience) and India or Punjab is no exception to this. Favoured by cool to moderate temperature with adequate humidity, the disease first hits submontaneous regions of Punjab like Ropar, Sahid Bhagat Singh Nagar, Hoshiarpur etc. In year 2008-09, the pathogen almost completely dominated over yield and this was the latest epidemic of yellow rust of wheat in Punjab. The varieties developed by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) have dominated the wheat scene during the past few years not only in the Punjab but the national level. A major share of wheat area falling in nearly 10 million hectares of the North Western Plains Zone (NWPZ), comprising Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Western Uttar Pradesh, parts of Rajasthan and foothills of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttranchal, was being cultivated by the PAUdeveloped variety PBW 343, released in 1995. At the All-India Coordinated Trials, conducted in 2003 under irrigated timely sown condition in NWPZ, PBW 343 has been one of the highest yielding varieties and has been ranked first with respect to grain yield in 199293 and continuously from 1994-95 to 2000-01. Significant increase in wheat production has been witnessed by Punjab since the release of PBW 343. Wheat production in Punjab was 125.18 lakh tonnes in 1995-96 and increased to 159.00 lakh tonnes in 1999-2000. Similarly, the average yield of wheat Punjab increased from 3884 kg/ha in 1995-96 to 4704 kg/ha in 1999-2000. New records of wheat production and yield were established during 1996-97, 1998-99 and 1999-2000. This cultivar PBW 343 (also PBW 373) is still much popular, but unfortunately it had lost its power called "resistance" towards P.striiformis f.sp tritici and acts as a source of initiation of uredinospore laiden winds from sub-montaneous regions to plains of the state and helps in marking the presence of rust pathogen every year. Due to highly susceptible nature of this cultivar, PAU is discouraging farmers of state especially of sub-montaneous region's farmers to cultivate this variety. The feature of emerging as new races of this pathogen is posing a challenge for wheat breeders and pathologists. The need of the hour is to inculcate resistance for long term in plant population by identifying and then introducing resistant genes in plant population. Luckily this year (2011-2012) disease was noticed at a time in few villages and was controlled both chemically and naturally (weather which was favourable for wheat but not for the pathogen) and the incidence was low. Weather was much favourable to wheat crop this year and PAU experts are expecting bumper yield of this amber colored grain in state markets, provided the weather remains kind enough.