ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: The government has allocated Rs40 million for combating the possible attack of stem rust on wheat crop in Pakistan. An official in the ministry of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) said on Thursday that a new race of stem rust UG 99 with virulence for Sr 2 & Sr 31 and other important genes has become a threat to wheat including the wheat crop of Pakistan.

The official said to counter the epidemic, the allocated amount would be utilized for revitalising the wheat research effort in Pakistan.

This would include upgrading the national capacity through research, infrastructure up-gradation including laboratories and training of personnel.

The official said it had also been decided to put into place an early warning system involving testing of Pakistani varieties advance lines in East Africa, which was a hot spot for stem rust.

The combating efforts, the official said would also include an aggressive breeding programme using new bio-technological molecular markers and haploids and active collaborative with international centres like CIMMYT and ICARDA.

Rusts have been a constant threat to Global Wheat Production Breeders. Therefore, consistently government have been making efforts to develop resistant material against continually evolving new pathogen.

Pakistan faced its first challenge with rust fungus when an epidemic of rust (1977-78) led to imports of over 2 million tons in 1978. Since then Pakistan has established very strong research linkages with international centres like CIMMYT, ICARDA and through coordinated mechanism the breeders in the country have been receiving relevant germ plasma from these centres for use in their breeding programmes, added the official.