Annual losses due to wheat diseases in Pakistan are estimated around 3.6 billion rupees. It is statistics like these that motivated the establishment of plant pathology group within crop breeding division of NIFA to develop and apply economically feasible and environmentally acceptable management practices that reduce the adverse effect of disease on our food security.

1. Syed Jawad Ahmad Shah, PS
2. Muhammad Ibrahim, JS

Overall aim of plant pathology group is to foster the development of disease resistant germplasm and crop varieties.

Disease	Cause	Appearance	Key Symptoms
Leaf rust	Puccinia triticina	March-May	Circular to oval reddish-orange pustules on leaves; orange spores that rub off onto fingers
Yellow or stripe rust	Puccinia striiformis tritici	March-April	Bright yellow-orange pustules arranged between the veins in stripes.
Powdery mildew	Blumeria graminis tritici	March-April	White patches of mycelium and conidia develop on upper leaf surfaces
Foliar blight	Helminthosporium triticina	March-April	Characterized by small, dark brown lesions 1 to 2 mm long without chlorotic margin.
BYD disease	BYDV	February-March	Symptoms begin as blotches near the tip, and with time, these turn various shades of yellow, red or purple.
Black point	Alternaria alternata	March-April	Brown discoloration around the embryo end of the seed
Karnal bunt	Tilletia indica	March-April	Bunted seeds have dark appearance and pungent fishy odor

 

1. Monitoring of airborne wheat pathogens through spore trapping technology
Propagules of many foliar pathogens of wheat diseases including rusts, smuts and blights spread locally and long distances by air from their primary sources of infection or over summering regions and produces diseases in new areas. Aerobiology of such economically important pathogens of wheat is essential for developing durable long-term management strategies and models. Preliminary studies are under progress at NIFA to establish the arrival and seasonal dynamics of important airborne pathogens.

 2. Yellow rust monitoring and prediction studies
To produce healthy wheat crop in a cheap and environment friendly way, knowledge is needed concerning disease resistance in the host and the ability of the pathogen to overcome the genes conferring host resistance. The only economic and practical control of rust diseases can be achieved through genetic resistance. Effective and ineffective yellow rust resistance genes are being identified and confirmed for developing recommendations for wheat breeding programs of the region. 

3. Field based yellow rust pathotyping
An effective pathogenicity study of wheat rust pathogens has several important functions. Its main aim is to establish the prevalent rust pathotypes virulence structure of the region for the development of resistant germplasm and varieties. Previous field studies identified several races which were found virulent to major NWFP varieties.

4. Identification of slow yellow rusting wheat
Rust development over a period of time provides valuable information regarding host resistance against prevalent virulences. The ability of certain genotypes to retard rust development is a form of partial resistance and is referred to as “slow rusting” which has been fully investigated in several host/pathogen systems, including wheat/rust and barley/rust, corn/rust and faba bean/rust. This host trait is very effective in reducing disease development process and production losses. Several slow rusting genotypes/varieties have been identified and their confirmatory studies are under progress.

5. Disease resistance screening program