Having dedicated the better part of 2009 to understanding the threat posed by Ug99, a fungus that threatens to decimate much of the Eastern Hemisphere’s wheat crop, our ears always prick up when we hear of looming agricultural catastrophes. The latest comes in the form of Pathogen206, which afflicts wheat with yellow rust (aka stripe […]
Entries Tagged as 'wheat'
The Fungi’s Second Front
May 12th, 2010 · 5 Comments
Tags:agriculture·genetics·Pathogen206·Ug99·wheat·yellow rust
Echoes of the Empire
February 25th, 2010 · 7 Comments
This will be our last Ug99-related post, we promise. But before we ended our brief run of bonus material related to “The Red Menace”, we thought we’d shout out one of the potential heroes of this story: the late A.E. Watkins, a British botanist who spent much of the 1930s roaming the globe in search […]
Using the Red Menace Against the Reds
February 24th, 2010 · 3 Comments
One of the most interesting things about Ug99, the fungus that is currently threatening the world’s wheat supply, is how it managed to sneak up on us. For nearly four decades, the disease that the Puccinis graminis pathogen causes, known as stem rust, was little seen in the wild, and certainly no great peril to […]
The Red Menace
February 23rd, 2010 · 6 Comments
It took over half-a-year, but the Wired piece that brought us out to Kenya last fall is finally live. It’s the tale of a wheat-killing fungus called Ug99, which is currently sweeping across Central Asia. The pathogen is remarkable because it can easily overcomes the genetic defenses created by the Green Revolution. As a result, […]
Tags:Afghanistan·agriculture·famine·Kenya·Ug99·Uganda·wheat·Wired
The Grain Curve
August 27th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Grain Curve
Inspired in part by the “Meat is the new bread!” daring of the much maligned KFC Double Down, we recently found ourselves keen on learning more about the history of America’s love affair with flour. There is, of course, good reason that one of our most patriotic songs goes out of its way to shout […]
Tags:breakfast cereal·China·development·economics·food·India·John Harvey Kellogg·U.S. history·wheat