Page 125 - Farm Bill Series_The 7 Things You Should Know

“Some people will say that science is science and it doesn’t matter where it’s going to – it’s an
international enterprise,” Grumbly said to the audience of Hill staffers. “That’s not true when it
comes to China.”

A ‘cereal killer’ that only science can profile
If the thought of losing research superiority to China isn’t enough to get lawmakers behind
agriculture research, the scientific community has another card up its sleeve: the threat of
impending disaster for major crops.

U.S. farmers grow about 2 billion bushels of wheat every year to make the bread, pizza dough,
donuts, pretzels, cookies and noodles that we eat. And it’s all at risk from a devastating fungus
that’s making its way around the world and wreaking havoc in the fields it touches.

Just one spore of the Triticum pathotype of the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae – known more
commonly as wheat blast – is enough to kill a wheat head. A severe infection can wipe out a
farmer’s entire crop. That’s the scene that replayed over and over in Bangladesh last year.

The closely related rice blast has been around for about 7,000 years and farmers are equipped to
deal with it, according to Barbara Valent, a Kansas State University researcher and the
preeminent expert on the fungus in the U.S. But wheat blast was first detected only about 20
years ago in South America and farmers still have no real defenses.
It’s still not completely clear how the fungus got to Bangladesh, but Valent said it can travel
through the seed and grain trade. And that’s scary, she warned.

The fungus that caused between 30 percent and 100 percent losses throughout southern
Bangladesh last year has not reached the U.S. yet, but Valent fears it’s only a matter of time.

Researchers at Kansas State, the University of Arkansas, the University of Kentucky, Ohio State,
Purdue University, and USDA’s own Agricultural Research Service have received about $5.4
million in AFRI funds since 2009 to fight both wheat and rice blast, according to NIFA.
Scientists have used that money to come up with the first wheat gene that’s resistant to the blast
fungus, but that’s not nearly enough, Valent said. There are hundreds of resistant genes for rice
blast and now there’s only one for wheat – and that one’s not very effective.

Meanwhile, Valent is leading the effort to try to detect what she calls a “cereal killer” that’s on
the move again and has likely already spread to crops in India this year.

Detection is key she said, because the fungus could arrive in U.S. fields and begin spreading long
before farmers know it’s there. It’s complex work she said, but it’s not just time that’s running
out – it’s money, too.
“This research was supported by two competitive grants,” she said. One of them has finished and
“one of them runs through the end of the year and then there’s no more funding.”

There’s also a threat to the U.S. orange juice industry. Unlike wheat blast, the tree-killing
Huanglongbing disease, or citrus greening, has ravaged Florida orange groves for years and is
quickly bringing the industry to its knees.

www.Agri-Pulse.com 123