© BATISEBA TEMBOSymptoms of wheat blast were first seen in experimental plots and small-scale farms in the Mpika district of Muchinga province in northern Zambia during the 2018 rainy season.
It could have been blown in by wind or transported by infected crop residue and maybe seeds — the exact mode of introduction remains debated. But the evidence for the presence of wheat blast is indisputable: the devastating fungal pathogen is now in Zambia, its first appearance in Africa.
"The detection of the disease in Africa is alarming," Tarekegn Terefe, a wheat pathologist at South Africa's Agriculture Research Council - Small Grain Institute, tells
The Scientist.
The disease is so deadly it can cause yield losses of more than 70 percent on susceptible cultivars, he says.
"The detection of the disease in Zambia puts southern African wheat-producing countries — South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Malawi — at high risk," Terefe explains. Previous
studies have documented the occurrence of similar wheat fungal diseases in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, "indicating the possibility of inoculum exchange between these countries."
Comment: About 5 hours earlier and also in the Pacific Ocean: Shallow 6.0-magnitude earthquake hits West Chile Rise