![Photo: Stripe rust on a wheat leaf. Link to photo information](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509133354im_/http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/jun06/d517-1i.jpg) A gene has been discovered
that will make bread wheat able to resist stripe rust, a serious problem for
wheat growers. Click the image for more information about it.
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![For further reading](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509133354im_/http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/For-further-reading.gif)
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ARS, Cooperators Discover Wheat Gene with
Resistance to Stripe Rust
By
Dennis O'Brien February 19, 2009
An international team of researchers that includes an
Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
expert on wheat biotechnology has discovered a gene that will make bread wheat
capable of resisting stripe rust, a fungus that causes crop losses in many
states.
Scientists transferred a resistant gene, known as Yr36, from a race of
wild wheat into a handful of domesticated pasta and bread wheat varieties. The
wild wheat was collected in Israel, a part of the Fertile Crescent where
ancient varieties of wheat have grown for centuries, according to
Ann
Blechl, a geneticist at the ARS
Western
Regional Research Center in Albany, Calif.
The research was published today in the journal Science by a team that, in addition
to Blechl, includes
Xianming
Chen, an ARS plant pathologist in Pullman, Wash., and researchers from the
University of California-Davis
and the University of Haifa
in Israel. Publication of the gene sequence should give breeders the ability to
use sequence-based DNA markers to incorporate resistance into new wheat
varieties.
The researchers used a detailed map of a region of one wheat
chromosome to isolate a candidate gene sequence. Blechl conducted the team's
genetic transformation experiments, transferring the candidate sequence into a
susceptible bread wheat variety. Subsequent tests showed the transformed plants
were resistant to at least eight races of stripe rust.
Pasta, bread and other foods made with wheat account for about 20
percent of the calories consumed worldwide. But wheat producers have been
battling stripe rust in the Pacific Northwest since the 1950s, according to
Chen. Severe outbreaks occurred in the South and Midwest in 2000, and three
years later the disease wiped out 25 percent of the wheat crop in California.
Caused by the fungus Puccinia striiformis, stripe rust is
spread by the wind and is most likely to ruin crops in mild winters, wet
springs and wet summers.
The fungus evolves rapidly, developing new races that overcome various
race-specific seedling resistances. While it provides only partial resistance
to adult plants at high temperatures, Yr36 is useful because it protects
against all known strains of stripe rust, making it an effective tool.
ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.