Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists learn something new every year. This year, they turned their attention from drought to wheat rust.
Dr. Jackie Rudd, an AgriLife Research wheat breeder in Amarillo, said the recent increase in moisture has allowed them to gain information on leaf rust, stripe rust and stem rust in wheat. The environmental differences from College Station all the way north to Amarillo provide more diversity than throughout the rest of the Great Plains region, he said.
“This year we’ve learned a lot, continue to learn a lot, about how our varieties respond to rust,” Rudd said. “We almost always have rust somewhere in Texas, but this year there’s not a field in Texas that I’ve experienced that has not been affected by at least one of these.”
Many producers sprayed for the fungus or were growing a resistant variety, Rudd said. It’s good for the breeding program, because they can see the rusts under field conditions.
“That’s what has been a major value this year to the breeding program, seeing the varieties that have showed high resistance to stripe rust, such as TAM 114 here in the High Plains,” Rudd said. “It remained green with leaves in many cases when varieties such as TAM 112, which we know is very susceptible to stripe rust, had leaves drying up and will certainly have a reduced yield.”