Researchers at Australian’s national science agency led an international effort to increase resistance against rust disease by stacking five resistance genes together.
The successful stack is a major advancement over conventional wheat breeding protocols where resistant genes are added one by one.
Lead CSIRO researcher Mick Ayliffe said this novel genetic approach would make it much harder for rust pathogens to successfully attack a wheat crop.
“Our approach is like putting five locks on a door — you’re making it very difficult to get in,” Dr Ayliffe said.
“Rigorous field testing showed that our gene stack approach provided complete protection against the rust pathogens we were targeting.”
In Australia wheat is a $6 billion per year industry and the 2021 crop is expected to be favourable, if not on par with the massive 2020 crop.
It’s been estimated a disease outbreak of one of the world’s most dangerous rust strains — Ug99 — could cost the sector up to $1.4 billion over a decade.
“Successfully validating the effectiveness of our technology makes this approach an incredibly attractive opportunity to protect global grain crops,” Dr Ayliffe said.
This first successful project targeted stem rust, but Dr Ayliffe said the same technology could work against stripe and leaf rust.
“We don’t know the limits of this new gene stacking technology yet,” he said.
“We currently have an even larger genetic stack with eight resistance genes in the lab, so even more protection against rust is possible.”
Wheat rust is prone to mutating rapidly, making it a thorn in the side of conventional wheat breeders who can’t respond quickly enough.
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