Monsif Ur Rehman, Amina Nasim Khan and Imtiaz Muhammad
The Wheat Productivity Enhancement Program (WPEP) led by CIMMYT is providing leadership in the overall collaboration aimed at strengthening Pakistan’s own wheat rust surveillance activities and facilitating maximum synergies between Pakistan and international rust surveillance efforts.
CIMMYT is contributing to rust research activities in collaboration with Pakistan Agricultural Research Center (PARC) and the Crop Disease Research Institute (CDRI) substation in Murree. As part of this contribution, WPEP invited Yue Jin, wheat rust expert at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Cereal Disease Laboratory, to visit Pakistan from 18-22 May 2015. The purpose of his visit was to participate in rust research activities at CDRI Murree. His visit also gave wheat scientists, including Borlaug Fellows, the opportunity to work with him and gain hands-on experience on wheat stem rust research activities.
Yue Jin delivered a lecture on recent stem rust epidemics and their causal races in which he described the global rust scenario. The lecture was followed by a visit to barberry sites in Murree, where he apprised the audience of the role barberry plants play in the emergence of new rust races. National scientists were also given updates on Ug99 races, such as the ones that have attacked Ethiopian wheat variety Digalu, and on the detection of Ug99 in Egypt in 2014. The study of wheat rusts, especially Ug99, is crucial in Pakistan since wheat is the country’s most important crop. Wheat accounts for 60% of the daily caloric intake of the average Pakistani, and is grown on over 9 million hectares of land throughout Pakistan.
On 22 May 2015, Yue Jin and Imtiaz Muhammad, Country Representative CIMMYT-Pakistan, met to discuss WPEP activities and plans for future wheat rust surveillance in Pakistan.
At the end of his visit, Yue Jin commended the efforts of CIMMYT and CDRI: “The rust research facility at CDRI Murree Station in Pakistan is highly functional and has skilled staff who are actively involved in establishing living culture collections of cereal rusts and accurately identifying rust races. CIMMYT International in Pakistan has done a remarkable job in supporting research on wheat rust control through WPEP.”