IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it ...

In 2013, farmers in the highlands of Ethiopia began to notice something unsettling: a familiar variety of wheat was failing in an unfamiliar way. Stems weakened, plants collapsed, and fields that had ...

Pests and diseases result in the loss of one-fifth of the global wheat harvest each year, which is enough to make around 290 billion loaves of bread. Resolving the persistent problem of the fungal ...

In a study in which they say will help eradicate major wheat diseases, researchers have assembled the genome of bread wheat and identified the gene responsible for stripe rust resistance. Crop ...