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77 Comments
- Aaronicus, on 07/18/2009, -11/+471) who funded the real study and who's responsible for the research being done to eradicate this fungus?
2) where did it ORIGINATE (this strain)?
I'd be willing to bet both answers are "Monsanto." They've been pushing to be allowed to make HT (GMO) seed crops in wheat for a long time. They already own corn and others. It's only a matter of time before every bit of food grown in the world is a wholly owned product of Monsanto.
Funny how this fungus becomes a "crisis" right about the time Monsanto has been pushing the Ag Dept to let them proliferate more of their GMO'd wheat seeds. - mrfuzz, on 07/18/2009, -0/+26This sounds quite serious - I had not heard about the Ug99 but it sounds like it's going to cause big problems for food supplies. ( and also probably wheat beer, which I am fond of )
- atlasdugged, on 07/18/2009, -4/+30I always wonder when we step in to defeat or alter the ecosystem what the unintended consequences will be...
- redcolumbine, on 07/18/2009, -0/+18Crop diversity is always a good idea.
- uncleosbert, on 07/18/2009, -2/+18you know, you might want to investigate that yourself before you just go off on a paranoid rant. i'm no fan of monsanto, but i'm pretty sure they don't have time machines...
"Bread wheat is only about 10,000 years old and stem rust has been along for the entire ride.
Archaeological finds in the Middle East have included spores of the rust. Some biblical scholars have interpreted Old Testament references to “blasting winds and blight” to be stem rust. The Romans actually worshipped a god believed to ward off stem rust.
As North American wheat acreage increased in the last 150 years, there were recurring stem rust epidemics. Wheat improvement efforts by Canada and the United States were, in large measure, driven by the need to genetically protect the crop against stem rust.
In the mid-1940s, agronomist Norman Borlaug (who would later receive a Nobel Prize) was sent to Mexico by the Rockefeller Foundation to help develop wheat varieties that were, among other things, stem rust-resistant.
In 1950, Canadian and U.S. scientists doing annual surveys discovered a stem rust race that would later spread across the United States. Although it didn’t reach damaging levels immediately, the race was expected to cause epidemics in subsequent years. And it did: from 1951 through 1953, there were dramatic stem rust epidemics, including the near-annihilation of the U.S. durum crop.
In 1953 alone, 20 percent of North America’s spring wheat was lost to stem rust.
By that time, there had been 40 years of science-based research on both the stem rust pathogen and wheat itself. Using Borlaug’s capacity and contacts, Americans and Canadians began an international effort to initiate international rust nurseries. Their efforts in bundling resistance genes with everything else needed in a wheat variety suppressed the disease for over 50 years.
Then, in 1998, a Ugandan trained by CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), found something interesting in his home country. While not much wheat is grown in Uganda, the researcher located a race of stem rust that had overcome the wheat resistance genes. The race was named Ug99."
http://deltafarmpress.com/wheat/wheat-rust-0417/ - B1665r, on 07/18/2009, -1/+16Corn Bread FTW!!!
- DirtPile, on 07/18/2009, -0/+11As long as there is threat to the world's bacon crop.
- B1665r, on 07/18/2009, -3/+13No I head about this on Art Bell a bunch of years ago. This is an obvious prelude to an alien invasion.
- pingpants, on 07/18/2009, -0/+9A different agricultural pathogen is currently wiping out tomato plants in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states. Including organics.
- existing, on 07/18/2009, -0/+9I wonder if growing heirloom varieties would make a difference (thereby creating crop diversity)...or would they be just as susceptible to the disease...?...
- Ferre1, on 07/18/2009, -2/+10When this goes on somewhere in the future we'll realize the need for monsanto-resistant humans.
- sacramentalist, on 07/18/2009, -1/+8UG99, you ain't got no alibi!
- fasda, on 07/18/2009, -1/+8Did you read the the dam article before you started typing? the first page has 4 citations from different places on this "Working inside a bio-secure greenhouse outfitted with motion detectors and surveillance cameras, government scientists at the Cereal Disease Laboratory in St. Paul, Minn...", "'It's a time bomb,' said Jim Peterson, a professor of wheat breeding and genetics at Oregon State University in Corvallis","The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico estimates" and "Rick Ward, the coordinator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y". Now as for where this strain came from go to page two near the bottom is "A new strain, of stem rust was identified on a wheat farm in Uganda in 1999."
- brainboy7777, on 07/18/2009, -4/+10It happened again. Whenever there's a new world ending disease or plague or virus, it'll show up first on digg. Look at Swine flu. The first time I heard about that ***** was on digg, and I thought it was a joke. Look at it now.
- PoliticalMan922, on 07/18/2009, -0/+6Well that sucks...
- bhussobama, on 07/18/2009, -0/+6your ancestors came out of africa
- Garmonbozzia, on 07/19/2009, -0/+5Will this also endanger Wil Wheaton?
- fuzzybeard, on 07/18/2009, -0/+4Celiacs have got a big head start...
- riverrunner, on 07/19/2009, -0/+4there goes that pesky evolution again - oh wait god must have guided it - perhaps to curse us for doing something wrong.
- m0llusk, on 07/18/2009, -1/+5Stop eating wheat now and be ready.
- existing, on 07/18/2009, -0/+4pingpants - I found an article on late blight fungus (link below); is this what you're talking about? Sounds like it's getting bad; hope it doesn't reach us here in IL, but it could, as our weather has also (at times) been cooler and wetter than normal. We've planted only heirlooms that we started from seeds, and so far, they're doing extremely well. But I will be watching for this fungus; thanks for the heads-up.
The article linked below also states: "A strain of the fungus was responsible for the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century." Which is interesting, because that's exactly what I had in mind when making the comment about heirlooms in relation to the Ug99 fungus. I've read before that at the time, had there been more crop diversity, the Irish potato famine may have been able to be avoided.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/nyregion/18tomat ... - dylanrob, on 07/18/2009, -0/+4was about to say the same thing haha
- etx313, on 07/18/2009, -0/+4Amen Brother.
- Ymeg, on 07/18/2009, -0/+3Citation?
- fuzzybeard, on 07/18/2009, -0/+3Time to start stocking up on Tücher!
- BalzacOG, on 07/18/2009, -0/+3It's time for large scale algae cultivation. Seaweed too.
- Akairenn, on 07/18/2009, -1/+4SOYLENT GREEN IS PEEEEOOOPLE!
- PhilMoskowitz, on 07/18/2009, -1/+4As long as it ends with Monsanto chair holders on pikes, I'm down with a little famine.
- FauOz, on 07/18/2009, -2/+5Another great contender for the decade of doom we seem to welcome.
- KibibyteBrain, on 07/18/2009, -1/+4Wheat is about the most bio-engineered food in existence being almost totally modified by thousands of years of human agriculture. Indeed, this is one reason its very susceptible to disease. I think that as a result "natural" or "organic" wheat is almost an oxymoron, and that it will always take creative and constant breeding to keep the crop viable since it is so far displaced from natural fitness of any sort. Since wheat production is now orders of magnitude greater than it has ever been before, the rate at which disease will emerge will also be orders of magnitude more, and we will have to either open minded for new breeding techniques with the crop or just give up and abandon it, which I doubt is an option.
- chonky, on 07/18/2009, -2/+4We could grow a different type of wheat that is resistant perhaps? That is the benefit of bio-diversity. The diversity prevents complete destruction in complex reproducing organisms when disease strikes. For example, corn in Mexico. How many types of corn do they grow in Mexico? The answer: A *****. Always got some tasty corn in Mexico. How many different types of potatoes where the Irish farming before the potato famine? The answer: A few. Bio-diversity is key to having a stable crop year after year.
- uncleosbert, on 07/18/2009, -0/+2no, i think there's some pretty valid stuff to be afraid of here:
"Archaeological finds in the Middle East have included spores of the rust. Some biblical scholars have interpreted Old Testament references to “blasting winds and blight” to be stem rust. The Romans actually worshipped a god believed to ward off stem rust.
As North American wheat acreage increased in the last 150 years, there were recurring stem rust epidemics. Wheat improvement efforts by Canada and the United States were, in large measure, driven by the need to genetically protect the crop against stem rust.
In the mid-1940s, agronomist Norman Borlaug (who would later receive a Nobel Prize) was sent to Mexico by the Rockefeller Foundation to help develop wheat varieties that were, among other things, stem rust-resistant.
In 1950, Canadian and U.S. scientists doing annual surveys discovered a stem rust race that would later spread across the United States. Although it didn’t reach damaging levels immediately, the race was expected to cause epidemics in subsequent years. And it did: from 1951 through 1953, there were dramatic stem rust epidemics, including the near-annihilation of the U.S. durum crop.
In 1953 alone, 20 percent of North America’s spring wheat was lost to stem rust.
By that time, there had been 40 years of science-based research on both the stem rust pathogen and wheat itself. Using Borlaug’s capacity and contacts, Americans and Canadians began an international effort to initiate international rust nurseries. Their efforts in bundling resistance genes with everything else needed in a wheat variety suppressed the disease for over 50 years.
Then, in 1998, a Ugandan trained by CIMMYT (the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), found something interesting in his home country. While not much wheat is grown in Uganda, the researcher located a race of stem rust that had overcome the wheat resistance genes. The race was named Ug99."
http://deltafarmpress.com/wheat/wheat-rust-0417/ - BaphClass, on 07/18/2009, -1/+3Tough *****, I eat my goulash with macaroni in it. I will literally ***** stab someone in the throat, and steal his dried macaroni if the situation demands it. You hear me?
- KibibyteBrain, on 07/18/2009, -0/+2This would be more like Swine Flu if every other person in the place where Swine Flu first hit was dead, and it was proven to be spreading.
- Propethic, on 07/18/2009, -0/+2I don't know but it probably won't be the deaths of billions of humans due to starvation
- Woofermazing, on 07/18/2009, -0/+2"Roughly 16,000 wheat varieties and other plants have been tested in the cereal disease lab over the past four years. The tests have been conducted between Dec. 1 and the end of February, when the Minnesota weather is so frigid that escaping spores would quickly perish, Carson said."
Read the article next time. - SweetDaddyD, on 07/18/2009, -0/+2My mom says there is a lot of black people in Africa.
- Shadowarriorx, on 07/19/2009, -0/+2Ha, I see what you did there sir.
Pandemic 2? - inactive, on 07/19/2009, -0/+2Just say no to *onsanto.
I'm serious:
http://www.twilightearth.com/2009/05/the-world-acc ... - janjamm, on 07/19/2009, -0/+2One of the problems is that wheat is also connected to a whole biosphere of interdependent life, not to mention our own. l wonder what other crop issues are going to be arising. The planet, in some cases, maybe this wheat rust is an example, is just going about its cycles. It is so difficult to determine to which events humans contribute their devastation and which events are part of the big natural world sifting through its Darwinian tasks.
- kurisu10, on 07/18/2009, -0/+2This really sucks... looks like rice patties FTW.
- inactive, on 07/19/2009, -0/+1 Yep,that must be it..The imaginary dude in the sky is pissed.
Well,this disease would have less of a chance if we did not raise mono crops with virtually idinical genetic code and hybrids...
Humans are so stupid. - inactive, on 07/19/2009, -0/+1I hope so.
- inactive, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1Interesting:
The United States produced wheat stem rust and rye stem rust as part of its biological weapons program, which was active from 1943-1969.[6] Wheat and rye stem rust was produced from 1951-1957 at Fort Detrick then shipped to Edgewood Arsenal where it was classified, dried and stored.[7] Again, from 1962-1969 wheat stem rust spores were produced and shipped to Rocky Mountain Arsenal where they too were classified, dried and stored.[7] These anti-agriculture biological agents were tested at least 31 times by the U.S. military.[8]
(admittedly from Wikipedia so take with a grain of salt...) - uncleosbert, on 07/21/2009, -0/+1yes, he beat you to it. now there are 4 comments before yours elaborating on how stupid and paranoid that theory is.
congratulations, you still ignored all of them! - VolatileWhimsy, on 07/24/2009, -0/+1Don't know about you, but I've never found leaves among my box of envelopes. Find that completely odd that is how they arrived.
"The spores arrived from Kenya on dried, infected leaves ensconced in multiple layers of envelopes. " - Kyan, on 07/22/2009, -0/+1You're spot on except for the fact that the third world countries eat rice.
- epublicus, on 07/19/2009, -0/+1The world is going to end. The world is going to end. We're all doomed.....again.
- VolatileWhimsy, on 07/24/2009, -0/+1First sighting 1999
http://www.physorg.com/news146246313.html -
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