Pakistan

Wheat is an important cereal crop and staple food in Pakistan. Most of the wheat is cultivated late after cotton, rice and sugarcane. Introduction of long duration Bt cotton varieties further pushed its sowing to late December or even early January. Late sowing of wheat crop results in yield loss in the Punjab province. A study has been conducted in experimental fields of Wheat Research Institute, AARI, Faisalabad, Pakistan to find out the possible reasons of low grain yields in late sown crop. Twelve experimental wheat lines were planted on seven sowing dates starting from 1st November to 30th December with ten days interval. The experimental design was a factorial combination of seven sowing dates as main plots and twelve varieties/ genotypes as subplots in a split-plot design with three replications. Effect of temperature on several crop growth stages was studied. Mean minimum temperature during the month of December, 2016 and January, 2017 remained below 5?C and mean maximum was more than 30?C during March 2017. Weather conditions experienced by the crop at each developmental stage were compared with the optimum conditions required on that specific stage in each sowing date. It was revealed that in late sown crop, different phonological/growth stages of the crop and yield components and grain yield were affected negatively. It was concluded from the study that the late sown crop suffered from two types of temperature stresses. The late sown crop faced low temperature stress at starting phase which result in delayed germination and low tillering. At caryopsis formation and grain filling the same crop face high temperature stress causing reduced grain formation and shriveled grains due to enforced maturity. Sowing of wheat at proper time i.e., by the end of November was recommended to fetch maximum yields.

Resistance breeding for wheat leaf rust requires testing of breeding materials under field conditions, which must be complemented with diagnostic molecular makers. A set of 28 exotic wheat lines from advanced CIMMYT material along with three check varieties (Siran, Atta-Habib, Ghanimat-e-IBGE) were tested at three contrasting locations (Peshawar, Mansehra and Lakki-Marwat) and were genotyped with markers linked to three Lr genes (LrPr, Lr37, and Lr34). The overall leaf rust pressure was low during the wheat season of 2015-16, with the maximum disease observed at Lakki-Marwat (up to 70%), followed by Peshawar (up to 50%) and the minimum disease at Mansehra (up to 30%). Despite the overall low leaf rust pressure, the germplasm behaved variably in terms of leaf rust resistance as revealed through average co-efficient of infection (ACI). According to ACI value, 16 out of 28 genotypes were completely resistant, while few genotypes showed partial resistance. The maximum CI value was recorded for wheat line W-SA-87, which was 55 at Lakki Marwat, 33 at Peshawar and 15 at Mansehra, while 18 lines had CI value of zero across the three locations. Variability existed in yield parameters with W-SA-84, W-SA-78 and W-SA-79 producing the better grain yield. Genotyping with Lr linked markers viz., STS-7 (LrPr), SC-Y15 (linked with Lr37) and csLV34 (linked with Lr34) revealed that among the tested lines LrPr was the most frequent (83.8%), present in 26 lines; followed by Lr37 (77.4%), present in 24 lines, while Lr34 was present in 16 lines (71.1%). All three genes were detected in 45% of the germplasm. Cluster analysis grouped the germplasm in four clusters based on both phenotypic and molecular markers data. The information generated in the present study would be valuable in resistance breeding for a better control of leaf rust disease in Pakistan.

Wheat rust is a group of deadly, constantly changing fungal pathogens that pose a serious threat worldwide and also equally most important in Pakistan. Three participatory wheat seed value chain workshops conducted in Pakistan in 2014 indicated the predominance of informal seed systems in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pothwar region of Punjab. A relatively old and rust susceptible variety Sahar06 was covering nearly 50% area of irrigated wheat in Punjab while the coverage of TD-1 was nearly 75 % of wheat area in Sindh. Predominance of mega susceptible varieties with informal seed systems can be an important recipe for the outbreak of rust diseases threatening the stability of wheat production systems in Pakistan. It is challenging to continue to improve and sustain wheat productivity by reducing vulnerability of wheat varieties to rust diseases, both in time and space when more than 70% of wheat seed used comes from farmers' own farm saved seeds mostly of old and obsolete varieties. To address this, 17 recently released rust resistant wheat varieties with diversity in genetic background, adaptation and good yield potential have been deployed through a network of partners to nearly 10,000 smallholder farmers in parts of 62 districts of Pakistan. Varietal deployment was done by coordinating on farm participatory varietal selection with agronomic interventions and village level seed multiplication and marketing. Though, rusts pathogens can evolve into new strains that are more virulent and damaging to wheat crops, nevertheless, some of these varieties do carry known genes conferring resistance to yellow, leaf or stem rusts thereby help avert any sudden rust epidemics. This effort will be instrumental in improving the access to new seed varieties in the grassroots level and widening the genetic bases of wheat that will help in buffering the rust incidence and contribute to household food security of smallholder farmers in Pakistan.

A set of 63 wheat landraces obtained from Institute of Agri-Biotechnology and Genetic Resources, NARC-Islamabad was screened for adult plant resistance (APR) at two inoculated locations during the 2012-13 cropping season, i.e. Wheat Research Institute (WRI), Faisalabad, for leaf rust and Cereal Crops Research Institute (CCRI), Pirsabak, for stripe rust. Responses based on coefficients of infection (CI) were recorded. Five landraces were susceptible (CI >60) and 39 were resistant to both rusts at the adult plant stage; 47 lines were resistant to leaf rust and 51 were resistant to stripe rust, with CI values of 0-20. Four landraces had moderate levels of APR (CI 21-40) to both rusts, 12 to leaf rust and 8 to stripe rust. Only two landraces (accessions 10975 and 11029) showed MR/MS reactions, and one (11438) had an MS/S reaction; the remaining produced S reactions to leaf rust at WRI. At CCRI Pirsabak, the majority of lines responded with MR/MRMS reactions, the remaining lines were susceptible. The 39 landraces identified to have resistance to both diseases may carry new APR gene(s) to one or both rusts, but must be further characterized prior to use as parents in national wheat breeding programs.