Tackling exotic rust 'blow-ins' in Australia

Astute plant breeding and natural isolation have helped Australia avoid some of the worst cereal rust disease outbreaks which have savaged other parts of the world. But stem, leaf and stripe rust have all impacted on the Australian wheat industry and challenged plant breeders to develop resistant lines to keep abreast of the diseases.
 

University of Sydney Judith and David Coffey chair of Sustainable Agriculture, Professor Robert Park, said Australia had been running an active research and pre-breeding program on all the rusts for many years. The University of Sydney had been involved in rust research since 1917 and today co-ordinated a national program that included nodes at CSIRO Plant Industries, the University of Adelaide and CIMMYT in Mexico. 

Speaking at the Norman Borlaug Summit in Mexico, Professor Park said stripe rust had been the biggest disease issue for wheat production in Australia and around the world for the past 30 years. "Stripe rust only appeared in Australia in 1979. Prior to that we only had stem rust and leaf rust. It came into Australia in 1979 from Europe into eastern Australia," he said. "There was a lot of work that went to trying to understand it and to breed for resistance. It was dealt with successfully after 10 to 15 years."
 

But Professor Park said in 2002 there was a second incursion of stripe rust that came into Western Australia, probably from North America, and spread into eastern Australia. "That family of rust that came in 2002 is the one that is causing a lot of problems around the world because it is more aggressive. It is more adapted to higher temperatures and grows faster in the plant. So we have seen a lot of varieties affected by it in Australia," he said. "But there are varieties coming out now that have very good levels of resistance to that new family of stripe rust."
 

Professor Park said the stripe rust outbreaks in Australia in 1979 and 2002 created real challenges for the industry, but there had been other rusts since that had also found their way to Australia.