Scientists have been hard at work in recent years combating a significant disease of wheat. Stem rust is caused by a group of nasty fungal organisms that can infect wheat plants and devastate yields. In some cases up to 100% of the crop can be lost.
PULLMAN, Wash. – Traditional thought holds that a disease-causing organism has to penetrate a plant to initiate resistance. Now, two Washington State University scientists have established that a barley plant recognizes an invader and begins to marshal its defenses within five minutes of an attack. The discovery, along with the scientists’ successful cloning of barley’s […]
PULLMAN, Wash. -– Washington State University spring wheat breeder Michael Pumphrey is a team leader in a $40 million, global effort to combat UG99, an evolving wheat pathogen that poses a dangerous threat to global food security, especially those in developing countries.