Nepal

Rusts are one of major threats to reduce wheat production and productivity in Nepal. Rust fungi are obligate parasite survival during off-season either on voluntary wheat plants or other grass or timber plant species is not yet confirmed in Nepal. High-inputs, suitable hosts and existence of warm humid and cool high lands in different parts of country promote carryover of inoculums of rust fungi. Nepal could be potential sources of yellow rust and leaf rust epidemic for itself and for Indian sub-continent. Surveillance is one of important steps to know status of wheat diseases especially rusts occurrence in country. The SAARC rust tool box is systematic and regular monitoring activity of wheat and barley diseases conducted at various locations in Nepal. Altogether, 183 and 180 locations were surveyed in different parts of Nepal were put in global rust tool box server and validated in fiscal years 2014/15 and 2015/16. Wheat rusts disease scenario has been observed differently, it could be due to climate change and different virulent spectrum of races/pathotypes of rusts fungi and deployment of different wheat varieties. Yellow rust was widely occurred throughout mid hills in Nepal. Higher severity of yellow rust was observed in Kathmandu valley (80S -100S). Leaf rust was moderate to high (10MS-100S) in plain and hills. There was higher score of leaf rust observed in plain as well as in mid hills on susceptible wheat cultivar. Regular monitoring and surveillance at different locations in Nepal has been found helpful in digging out actual problems of wheat crop. Monitoring races of all three rusts occurring in Nepal is necessary for successful planning to manage rusts by deploying effective genes. Rust tool box is important to keep vigilance of new emerging rust races in country. This in turn could increase production and productivity of wheat in Nepal.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the major cereal crops vital for global food supply. Most of the wheat crop in developing world including that of Nepal is either grown with limited irrigation or under rainfed conditions and thus face moisture stress at one or more growth stages limiting grain yield. An experiment was carried out at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Rampur to evaluate the genetic variability of selected drought adaptive traits in Nepalese wheat germplasm. The wheat genotypes evaluated comprised of Nepalese landraces and commercial cultivars, CIMMYT (International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement) derived advanced introduction lines and three checks with differential drought adaptability. The wheat genotypes were grown in pots (single plant) arranged in a replicated split plot design in greenhouse under two contrasting moisture regimes, optimum and moisture stressed. The genotypes were evaluated for water use, water use efficiency, relative leaf water content and biomass production. The ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) revealed significant variation between environments and among the wheat genotypes for most of the traits studied. A wide range of variability was observed for water use, water use efficiency, biomass yield and relative leaf water content in moisture stressed and non-stressed environments. Nepalese cultivar Gautam showed a number of favorable drought adaptive traits, whereas, Bhrikuti was average in this respect. Based on the scores of drought adaptive traits recently released Cultivar (cv). Vijay was characterized as drought sensitive. A number of landraces and advanced breeding lines showed high level of water use efficiency and other positive traits for drought adaptation.