Using the stripe rust fungus to shut off stripe rust
Farm and Ranch March 28, 2010 Research at Washington State University is showing promise in using the stripe rust fungus itself as a way to shutoff stripe rust in a wheat plant. It is a project of Scott Hulbert, who holds the Cook Endowed Chair at WSU. He says what is involved is gene silencing, which is something that also occurs in nature. Hulbert: “What we found is that as the wheat rust is growing in the wheat plant it‘s got cells that penetrate the plant cells to feed off of them. And this is where we found that if we express the gene from that rust fungus in the plant cell we can suppress the expression of that gene in the rust fungus then.” Hulbert says they now know how to silence the rust, they just need to find the best genes to do it with. That could take another year. The project is using a high through-put system right now that doesn’t involve creating a transgenic plant. That’s the catch because to apply this in the field would mean transgenic wheat. Hulbert: “But what we are really hoping is when we are able to make transgenic plants we have the gene ready to control rust, period, in a durable fashion. Not for two years, one year or three years but that one transgene that will cure the problem.” If transgenic wheat is never accepted Hulbert acknowledges this work just becomes an academic exercise. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net. ? ?
