Скачать или смотреть Forecasting Wheat Diseases in Africa & South Asia: Wheat Disease Early Warning and Advisory System

Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) 2025 Technical Workshop

Abstract:
Wheat diseases pose recurring threats to food security due to factors including climate change, land use change, and emerging virulent strains. Rapid response to a wheat disease outbreak requires a timely and accurate estimate of disease risk. Building on a century of literature, over a decade of research, and years of development in pilot studies, a Wheat Disease Early Warning and Advisory System (DEWAS) is now in operation for eight countries in Africa and South Asia. One component of the interconnected and collaborative DEWAS project is the risk forecasting of wheat diseases, including the wheat rusts and wheat blast. At the core of the forecasting system are components for meteorologically driven aerobiological spore release and dispersal from known sites of infection, environmental suitability conditions for infection for stem, stripe and leaf rust and an integrated epidemiological model for stem rust. Near real-time ground surveys are uploaded automatically by trained personnel as input to initiate the models and accessed via the Wheat Rust Toolbox. State-of-the-art seven-day weather forecasts for target countries are provided by the UK Met Office, from which daily forecasts of wheat rust risks are calculated. Forecasting is also expanding to include wheat blast in Africa. Key to making the system sustainable and adaptable are capacity building through training and modular software development. Evaluation shows that integrating near real-time surveys and modelling long-distance spore dispersal improves prediction accuracy. The flexible framework can also be applied to other airborne plant diseases.

About the Speaker:
Jacob Smith is a postdoctoral research associate in the Epidemiology & Modelling Group led by Prof Chris Gilligan at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. With a background in climate science, he is interested in the interactions of plant disease and climate, particularly aerial dispersal.

About the Workshop:
The 2025 BGRI Technical Workshop took place on June 18 as part of the 17th International Cereal Rusts and Powdery Mildews Conference (ICRPMC), in collaboration with the European and Mediterranean Cereal Rust Foundation (EMCRF) and the Canadian Phytopathological Society.