Wheat can be vulnerable to diseases that may increase as the Earth warms. A team of scientists across five continents may have found a way to help wheat fight back, according to two papers published in the journal Science.
"Climate change is causing diseases to appear in places previously unseen,” Brande Wulff., a researcher at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia and an author of the study, said in a press release. “We need more study of plant immunity to develop technologies that will protect valuable food crops."
Wheat provides food for billions of people as well as the animals they eat. But the grain is susceptible to infectious diseases, just like humans and animals. Stem rust — sometimes called the “polio of wheat” — has historically killed crops and played a role in many famines. Scientists have developed some wheat strains resistant to the ...
