This is what scientists from Tel Aviv University and the University of Minnesota publish in the journal Plant Disease
Scientists from Tel Aviv University and the University of Minnesota in the USA found out details of a wild plant growing in Israel that is resistant to a fungal disease that threatens the cultivation of wheat in the world. The plant, a descendant of sharonic wheat which is a distant relative of bread wheat, grows exclusively on the coastal plain in Israel.
The study, the results of which were published in the August edition of the journal Plant Disease, offers hope to wheat scientists struggling with wheat stem rust. The cane rust disease (Khildon - named after the clusters of red-orange spores that cover the wheat canes and on them) is capable of causing heavy economic damage to the point of destroying the wheat crops. In 1999, a new strain of the fungus known as Ug99 was discovered in Uganda and is capable of attacking about 70% of the world's wheat varieties. Over the years since it was discovered, it has spread with the help of the winds to the countries of the Horn of Africa and even to Yemen, with predictions predicting its arrival in Israel soon.
Prof. Yehoshua Anixter, from the Cereal Research Institute at Tel Aviv University, the partner in this research, estimates that the Ug99 race poses a very serious threat to the cultivation of wheat in Israel, which extends over approximately 700,000 dunams. Anixter claims that the use of fungicides is indeed an immediate short-term solution but involves an economic and environmental price.
Prof. Brian Stephenson from the Department of Plant Diseases at the University of Minnesota states that the most effective way to fight the disease is to use wheat varieties resistant to the fungus and one of the best sources of resistance for this purpose is Ben Hita Sharoni. Finding individuals highly resistant to Ug99 in Ben Hita Sharoni is very significant but not necessarily surprising, according to Stephenson. Despite Israel's small area, it is possible to find a very wide genetic variation in the wild relatives of wheat, barley and oats, and in many cases when a disease breaks out, the solution can be found in the wild species.
The genes carried by the wild species are extremely important for grain crops far beyond Israel's borders, claims Anixter, and adds that populations of Ben Hita Sharoni are threatened with extinction because their main habitat is on the coastal plain, which is undergoing accelerated development.
Extinction of sharoni wheat populations may lead to a reduction of the genetic diversity necessary to protect the wheat against future threats of various diseases, according to Pablo Olivera, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, who is leading the research. Scientists from the USA and Israel continue to collect seed samples from different populations of this species to preserve them in the gene bank at Tel Aviv University.
The solution to the current threat caused by Ug99 will not be found overnight. Dr. Eitan Malat, a wheat geneticist at the Cereal Research Institute, recognizes the difficulties involved in transferring the resistance from Sharoni wheat to wheat, and predicts that the entire process will take 5 years or more, but it is highly feasible. In doing so, he relies on his experience in transferring resistance to other diseases from Sharoni wheat to wheat.
One response
In the non-street future there will be no more wild plants. When green organizations warn against the destruction of rare habitats, they laugh in their faces and build a new neighborhood.
It is possible to grow and develop without destroying unique habitats, but once the value of the land is high, the economic interest wins over any rare plant. It is a shame that the government chooses the immediate economic gain and does not understand that the economic cost in the future will be doubled and multiplied. Already today dozens of plants have disappeared from the country. Who knows what diseases could be cured if they still existed.