Newly Discovered Fungus Threatens World Wheat Crop

RickRussellTX writes "The UN reports that a variety of the rust fungus originally detected in Uganda in 1999 has already spread as far north as Iran, threatening wheat production across its range. The fungus infects wheat stems and affects 80% of wheat varieties, putting crops at risk and threatening the food sources for billions of people across central Asia. Although scientists believe they can develop resistant hybrids, the fungus is moving much faster than anticipated and resistant hybrids may still be years away. Meanwhile, national governments in the path of the fungus are telling folks that there is nothing to worry about."

Boom!

The question isn't whether we need to send John Madden in with some Boom! Fast Actin' Tinactin!, but can we eat this new fungus?

Some fungi are delicious.

No Blade of Grass...?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass [wikipedia.org]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066154/ [imdb.com]

just eat it

just eat it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_smut [wikipedia.org]

Considered a pest in most of the United States, smut feeds off the corn plant and decreases the yield. Usually smut-infected crops are destroyed. However, in Mexico corn smut is called huitlacoche (IPA: [witakote], sometimes spelled cuitlacoche), a Nahuatl word reportedly meaning raven's excrement [1]. It is considered a delicacy, even being preserved and sold for a higher price than corn. For culinary use, the galls are harvested while still immature -- fully mature galls are dry and almost entirely spore-filled. The immature galls, gathered two to three weeks after an ear of corn is infected, still retain moisture and, when cooked, have a flavor described as mushroom-like, sweet, savory, woody, and earthy. Flavor compounds include sotolon and vanillin, as well as the sugar glucose.

uh... never mind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot [wikipedia.org]

Ergotism is the name for sometimes severe pathological syndromes affecting humans or animals that have ingested ergot alkaloid-containing plant material, such as ergot-contaminated grains. The common name for ergotism is "St. Anthony's fire", in reference to the symptoms, such as severe burning sensations in the limbs.[3] These are caused by effects of ergot alkaloids on the vascular system due to vasoconstriction of blood vessels, sometimes leading to gangrene and loss of limbs due to severely restricted blood circulation. The neurotropic activities of the ergot alkaloids may also cause hallucinations and attendant irrational behaviour, convulsions, and even death.[1][2] Other symptoms include strong uterine contractions, nausea, seizures, and unconsciousness. Historically, controlled doses of ergot were used to induce abortions and to stop maternal bleeding after childbirth. Ergot alkaloids are also used in products such as Cafergot (containing caffeine and ergotamine or ergoline) to treat migraine headaches. Simple ergot extract is no longer used as a pharmaceutical preparation.[citation needed] Monks of the order of St. Anthony the Great specialized in treating ergotism victims with balms containing tranquilizing and circulation-stimulating plant extracts; they were also skilled in amputations.[citation needed]

Strains

I wish the article would have mentioned how related the African and Asian wheat strains were to European and American strains. Since US corn crops are about 85% genetically similar doesn't make the situation in the US good at all. If it does hit the US pretty hard we may be seeing wheat coming from Mexico most likely.

Re:Strains

Great. Among everything else we now have to worry about illegal wheat crossing the border.

Re:Strains

My understanding is that the USDA has a plan to combat this fungus. This involves planting highly resistant wheat in the south during the winter while the northern regions get too cold for the fungus to survive. With no place to take hold in the south and a death zone in the north, the fungus should go away. (source [sciencedaily.com])

Oh, no!

There's a fungus amongus!

Re:Oh, no!

But is the fungus among us humongous?

Re:Oh, no!

that's in very spore taste and not fungi at all

This is bad

The USDA reports [usda.gov] that the virus can infect wheat which has the (previously) most effective rust resistant genes.

Work is being done [newscientist.com] to protect crops, but Norman Borlaug [wikipedia.org] says "This thing has immense potential for social and human destruction." Oh yes, and you can say goodbye to cheap white bread [coldclimategardening.com].

Amaranth

I hear buzz growing about amaranth [dailykos.com] as a grain contender. Better protein, restores soil nutrients, etc.

Re:panic merchants seek attention, news a 11

Think about it. Right now, one of the major breadbaskets of the Unites States, the Palouse region, is in perfect shape weather-wise for a bumper crop of wheat this year. We do not exactly have a shortage. But overseas they might... AND the dollar is low...

Sound to me like U.S. wheat farmers are going to clean up this year.

Just send everything one way, okay, guys? We don't want that fungus over here!



But since the apocalyptic scenario has been brought up: what a great illustration of the fact that we have WAY too much of our food crops being grown as huge tracts of monoculture, often all the same crop and all the same species. What a great target for famine-causing organisms.

Re:panic merchants seek attention, news a 11

what a great illustration of the fact that we have WAY too much of our food crops being grown as huge tracts of monoculture, often all the same crop and all the same species. What a great target for famine-causing organisms.

While I generally agree with your sentiment, I was surprised to read (in this article [newscientist.com]) that:

Black stem rust itself is nothing new. It has been a major blight on heat production since the rise of agriculture, and the Romans even prayed to a stem rust god, Robigus. It can reduce a field of ripening grain to a dead, tangled mass, and vast outbreaks egularly used to rip through wheat regions. The last to hit the North American breadbasket, in 1954, wiped out 40 per cent of the crop. In the cold war both the US and the Soviet Union stockpiled stem rust spores as a biological weapon.

So... rust fungus has been less of a problem in recent years, when we've been less diverse. Quite interesting.

(oh, and I now have a new favorite God - Robigus.)

Re:panic merchants seek attention, news a 11

According to the NPR interview I heard with some science-type person on this, the monoculture we've bred was resistant to rust, so you would expect to see numbers going down... until a version of the fungus able to overcome that resistance comes along. Which is what has happened here.

I just finished a book on phylloxera [wikipedia.org], and I find it interesting to see some of the parallels. Apparently 100 years is not enough time to learn from mistakes....

Re:panic merchants seek attention, news a 11

Apparently 100 years is not enough time to learn from mistakes...

100 years is too long. Hardly anyone lives that long, and nobody has time to read about all that has gone on before, and even if they did, they wouldn't be doing anything, they'd be reading about it. Nobody listens to people who just read about stuff, they're just a bunch of nerds.

You need good old politics to get stuff done. We'll ignore the wheat blight and grow corn to burn in our cars, and when the wheat crop fails, maybe we'll remember we can eat corn instead!

Then politicians can take credit for staving off the famine by encouraging corn farmers.

Re:panic merchants seek attention, news a 11

> Sound to me like U.S. wheat farmers are going to clean up this year. Actually most US wheat farmers sold their crop for this year long ago. That's one of the reasons wheat prices are already through the roof. Most of the sales out there are people fighting over the small amount of wheat that is still available. Farmers saw $7 wheat prices and sold as fast as they could. Never did they imagine that wheat would go over $10.

Re:panic merchants seek attention, news a 11

The wheat (and other non corn farmers) are going to clean up for the next few years, until market forces tilt the scales back to a more normal situation.

Firstly, the US national "wheat stores" (the supply of wheat the country has on-hand at any given time) is at its near lowest point since records began. I'll be damned if I can find the official source now, but I actually browsed a quarterly report from whatever organization that tracks this (USDA perhaps) and read this a few months back. This food storage site [survivalacres.com] (and blog) has been aware of the trends for a while, as his prices have gone through the roof.

On the anecdotal side: 1) Having livestock, I've witnessed the prices of non-corn 50-pound feeds nearly double in the past 6 months -- all were about $7/bag, and last time I bought them, wheat, oats, & barley were $15. Corn even went from about $7 to $9 over the same time; 2) The prices of food-grade wheat have gone from about $10/bag to over $20 (witnessed both on the Wheat Montanna [wheatmontanna.com] site and a local Macey's store, which sells 50-pound bags of Walton Feed [waltonfeed.com] wheat; 3) While recently at a wine store, I witnessed a farmer talking about converting over to hops, because hop crops are being converted to corn for the ethanol subsidies.

This, of course, is also a general trend of the prices of food (and everything else) going up to reflect higher fuel costs. We normally buy whole wheat and grind it fresh -- it's much healthier, and is normally much chepaer. Howeverm due to large mills buying advanced contracts at a set price, the prices of wheat flour haven't caught up with that of whole wheat yet. Right now, it's cheaper to buy 2 25-pound bags of flour than it is to buy a 50-pound sack of whole wheat berries, which is the first time I've witnessed this imbalance in the 10 years my family has been buying whole wheat. (These are typical retail prices -- price club prices may be different.)

Oh, and I found this post [reliefmine.com] while trying to find my link to US wheat stores numbers. Not proof positive of a coming "crisis", but when the the topic of wheat prices starts popping up on mainstream sites, it's worth taking note of. It's quite conceivable that this year we will see a doubling of prices for all wheat-based staples (flour, bread, pasta, etc.) and products which use wheat products will follow shortly thereafter. Even those of us who don't buy processed, pre-made stuff will be feeling the pinch. I really feel sorry for those who buy Eggo Waffles and frozen garlic bread in a box.

Immunity is fiction.

There is no resistance to it. Not a single person has survived exposure to the virus. The few supposed exceptions turned out not to be. The body cannot adjust to it. HIV is a polymorphic virus that mutates almost every replication. There is no evolutionary pressure to be resistant to it, because there is no survival rate. Same as there's no build-up in antibiotic-resistant bacteria when medication is taken correctly and appropriately. Resistant people in Africa or anywhere else is a nice fiction but should be left in Neuromancer.

Re:Immunity is fiction.

Even if AIDS itself were 100% lethal, there's still difference between being HIV positive and developing AIDS. There definitely is evolutionary pressure for supressing AIDS as long as possibe in HIV positive humans. The longer am HIV positive person stays "just infected", the more they can breed, and also the more they can spread the virus. So actually there is a two-way pressure both on humans and on HI virus to develop so that actual AIDS never starts. So there is an evolutionary pressure for evolving AIDS resistance and immunity.

And then of course there is pressure for being immune to HIV itself. Wether it has developed in any human yet or not, that's unknown I guess, but if it does (by random mutation) happend, then definitely it's an evolutionary advantage and is likely to spread over generations.

There is an immunity gene

Bubonic plague is transported in the body in a similar way to HIV. There is a recessive gene that provides immunity [bbc.co.uk], so you can be born flat-out immune to aids. It works by changing the shape of white blood cells.

Re:Immunity is fiction.

The few supposed exceptions turned out not to be. The body cannot adjust to it. HIV is a polymorphic virus that mutates almost every replication. There is no evolutionary pressure to be resistant to it, because there is no survival rate.

Which "exceptions that turned out not to be" are these? I'd appreciate some links to read more about this.

The latest information I had, was that there were some connection between the bubonic plague (Black Death) and AIDS resistance:
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/01/66198 [wired.com] :

An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected.

Re:Billions in Central Asia?

What's the definition of "central Asia"? Is there really "billions of people" there?

A few seconds research would've give you an answer [wikipedia.org] (80 million for the lazy).

I think however that the range of the fungus is far wider than just central Asia. Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia (along with the countries they supply grain to] could be affected, along with the rest of the world if the fungus continues to spread.

New scientist has a better article [newscientist.com] (from almost a year ago).

Re:Strangely the brits

are moaning about wheat production and asia sucking up production capacity at the moment as well. How ironic would it be after all the billions spent on security if we suffer catastrophic population denudation due to the simple fact we can't feed ourselves. Go mother nature, lets have some balance restored.

Really? You are hoping for famine that could cause billions of innocent people to starve just to teach us a lesson? Seriously?

Re:It's okay

Of course hemp comes up! Hemp does everything! [abovetopsecret.com] With it, you can make rope, clothes, food, furnature, computer chips, gold, planets, the One Ring, you name it, hemp can do it!

Q: I've heard hemp mills are awfully loud.
A: They run as quiet as a cloud.

Q: What if, perchance, hemp plastics should bend?
A: Not on your life, my stoner friend.

Q: What about us doped-up slobs?
A: You'll be given cushy jobs!

Q: The ring came off my pudding can!
A: Use a hemp one, my good man.

Q: Were you sent here by the devil?
A: No, good sir, I'm on the level.

You see, America, hemp's your only choice. Put down your bongs and raise your voice!

Re:It's okay

You get my point, though, don't you? The overwhelming majority of those touting hemp *virtually never* tout any other great fibers. Their sole reason they are concerned with hemp is made obvious by the sites where you see the advocacy, everywhere from "stopthedrugwar.org" to "nirvana-shop.co.uk" to "drugwarfacts.org" to "druglibrary.org" and so on. These people aren't into hemp because they've long had some sort of affection for quality fibers. Their sole interest is to try and show that the government went overboard with the drug war as part of a move to try and get the drug war repealed.

Hemp is not some magical crop. It has many uses, but they're often way overstated, and other crops, like kenaf, are superior in most respects. It's just another crop, one that could be useful, but has unfortunately gotten caught up in politics. Yet every time the topic comes up, you get these druggies who treat it like it's the Second Coming of Christ, and then act all taken aback when you point out that it's not exactly the best choice in most applications. Even some very common products today are superior than their hemp equivalents -- for example, plain 'old manila rope, made from a type of banana leaf. Just as strong, but doesn't rot nearly as easily as hemp rope does (hemp rope is particularly insidious when it comes to rot, as it tends to rot from the inside out and wick water along so that the whole rope can rot). Or take the other "miracle" thing often mentioned, hemp oil. Yes, it also has many uses. It's also not a very thermally stable oil, and is somewhat prone to going rancid.

Can you see how one can get sick of the politics-driven promotion of hemp as a cure-all?