India downplays scare over stem rust threat to wheat crops from Uganda
spores of a new variety of black stem rust may reach India from Uganda and hit most of the wheat crop soon. The alarm was raised by the international crop protection body Global Rust Initiative (gri) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, better known by its Spanish acronym cimmyt, but is being contested by Indian wheat scientists.
This new pathogen is called ug99 in Uganda. A variant of the Puccinia graminis fungus, ug99 has been popping up in fields throughout East Africa and has made an entry into Yemen and Sudan (see