The fight against wheat stripe rust is a war without an end

On September 2, Chen Wanquan, director of the Institute of Bast Fiber Crops of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, pointed out at the Agricultural Science Forum that although the project “Construction and Application of the Comprehensive Management Technology System for the Inoculum Source Base of Wheat Stripe Rust in China,” which won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, discovered that wheat stripe rust in China has two major inoculum base areas, the autumn inoculum source and the spring inoculum source, and clarified the source of the disease and the key areas for management; revealed the main pathways of virulence variation of the stripe rust pathogen and the patterns and causes of the “loss” of rust resistance in varieties, and created a technical platform for the identification and evaluation of rust resistance in varieties and the monitoring of pathogen virulence variation; proposed the zoned disease management strategy of “focusing on managing the over-summering variable area, continuously controlling the winter multiplication area, and comprehensively preventing the spring epidemic area,” and built a comprehensive management technology system for the inoculum source base, During 2009—2013, the cumulative promoted area across 8 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) nationwide reached nearly 400 million mu-times, achieving disease presence without disaster and lasting disease control, recovering more than 2 billion kilograms of wheat losses each year, with total increased income and savings reaching more than 15 billion yuan. However, because China is the country with the largest area of wheat stripe rust occurrence, the heaviest damage and losses, and the most complex ecological environment in the world, the problems of pathogen virulence variation and the “loss” of disease resistance in varieties have not yet been well solved, and the factors affecting disease occurrence and epidemic are still constantly changing, so the struggle against wheat stripe rust is a war without an end.

According to Chen Wanquan, wheat stripe rust is a very ancient disease, estimated to have a history of about four to five thousand years. Because the urediniospores of the stripe rust pathogen can spread over long distances of thousands of kilometers with high-altitude air currents, and because its occurrence and damage have the characteristics of long-term persistence, epidemicity, and variability, effective prevention and control of stripe rust has become a long-term international problem.

Chen Wanquan believes that China's prevention and control of wheat stripe rust cannot rely on annual emergency responses and annual urgency; it is necessary to seek fundamental solutions from the three aspects of host, pathogen, and environment, and establish a long-term mechanism for lasting disease control. First, it is necessary to clarify the mechanism of pathogen variation, breed durably resistant varieties, and solve the problem of single disease-resistance genes in varieties; second, around the comprehensive management of the inoculum source base, it is necessary to carry out collaborative research and joint prevention and control, and according to the characteristics of disease occurrence and damage in different regions, assemble and optimize comprehensive prevention and control technology systems and models suited to local and temporal conditions; third, through technical training and media publicity, enhance farmers' awareness and operational skills, through expert guidance and demonstration-driven efforts, improve farmers' technical level in scientific disease prevention, and through government leadership and administrative promotion, expand the application scale and application benefits of disease prevention technologies.

Chen Wanquan stated that agricultural research work has particularity, complexity, and long cycles, and the task is extremely arduous. It has no earth-shaking stories, only persistence year after year; no luxury of high-rise buildings, only waiting in the fields; no passionate excitement, only tireless experiments. As an agricultural researcher, the industry served is vast agriculture, the objects served are poor farmers, and the places served are backward rural areas. The mission requires us to carry forward the work style of enduring hardship and arduous struggle, to possess the truth-seeking spirit of long-term perseverance, persistent pursuit, and never giving up, and the dedicatory character of not seeking fame or profit, to have team awareness and a spirit of unity and cooperation, to vigorously carry out scientific research collaboration, to go deep into farmland and stay grounded, to discover problems, study problems, and solve problems, and to contribute lifelong energy to firmly keeping the rice bowl of the Chinese people in their own hands.