Hvedearter, udviklet med radioaktiv bestråling af frø, bliver introduceret i Kenya i september. Hveden er resistent overfor den ødelæggende plantsygdom rust.
ROME, 6 september 2013 (FAO): A multinational effort supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency and FAO marked a key milestone this week when a Kenyan university debuted two new varieties of disease-resistant wheat to the nation’s farmers.
Over the past two days, thousands of Kenyan farmers have visited Eldoret University in western Kenya for a two-day agriculture fair highlighting the latest farming technologies.
Supporting the development of the new varieties were the IAEA’s Technical Cooperation Department and the Joint FAO/IAEA Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture.
Interregional cooperation
They manage an interregional technical cooperation project to develop varieties of wheat that are resistant to a devastating type of fungus, causing a disease known as wheat stem rust.
Wheat stem rust was under control for over 30 years, but a resurgence of the disease was discovered in 1999 in Uganda that swiftly spread to neighbouring Kenya.
The wheat stem rust, caused by the strain of the fungus known as Ug99 named after its place and year of origin, has since spread to Iran, Yemen and South Africa and threatens crops as far away as India as spores are carried by wind. Parasitic rusts threaten global wheat production, reducing plant growth and crop yields. The disease can destroy up to 70-100 percent of the yield of wheat crop if not prevented.
Nuclear Technique
The varieties were developed using a nuclear technique for crop improvement known as mutation breeding. By exposing seeds, or plant tissue, to radiation, scientists accelerate the natural process of mutation, and then breeders are able to select and develop new varieties.
In 2009, Miriam Kinyua, a Kenyan plant breeder, sent 10 kilograms of five varieties of wheat seed to the FAO/IAEA laboratories in Seibersdorf, south of Vienna, where they were irradiated for mutation breeding.
These seeds were returned to Kenya where they were planted in a hot spot for the disease for screening and selection. Kinyua and her colleagues at the University of Eldoret’s Biotechnology Department identified eight lines resistant to Ug99. Four of these lines were submitted to Kenyan national performance trials, and two were officially approved as varieties by the national committee of the Ministry of Agriculture.
About six tonnes of seeds of the new varieties will be made available this month for the next planting season in Kenya.
