Confirmed outbreaks of stripe rust at Bellata and Gurley, in north-west New South Wales, should ensure even more bottoms on seats at a seminar on cereal foliar disease in Goondiwindi on Tuesday (August 17).

Rust specialist Harbans Bariana will be one of several pathologists at the special Grains Research Update to talk about rust in wheat and to answer questions from the floor about the disease.

Dr Bariana, who works on the Australian Cereal Rust Control program with the University of Sydney, says he would rather discuss what his Goondiwindi audience wants to know about rust than deliver a long prepared presentation.

The Goondiwindi Update, to be held at the Royal Hotel from 8.30 am, is an extension of the usual, annual round of updates organised by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) with the support of the Queensland and NSW Departments of Primary Industries, AgForce and the NSW Farmers Association

It was called to ensure leading growers and their advisers are better prepared to respond to disease outbreaks in the current season and into the future.

The GRDC¹s coordinator of northern region updates, John Cameron, says the confirmation of as yet unidentified strains of rust in the variety Clearfield Janz at Gurley and in Sunsoft 98 at Bellata should see growers and their advisers paying special attention in scouting susceptible and moderately susceptible varieties to look for signs of rust.

"The strains of rust in these two cases have yet to be identified, because the process can take a fortnight, or even longer," Mr Cameron said.

"But there is considerable industry concern that they might be of the new, West Australian strain of stripe rust that showed itself capable of breaking down established rust resistances when it emerged last season.

"We believed that Janz had the reputation of being one of the more rust resistant varieties around, and the Sun prefix wheats from the University of Sydney/Sunprime program also have reputations for good degrees of resistance.

"It¹s also a worry that the two paddocks reported as rust infected were planted early enough for the stronger adult plant resistance to have started to work in those crops."

Mr Cameron said he was sure growers and advisers in northern NSW and southern Queensland would be already scouting paddocks for signs of disease but a day spent at the Goondiwindi Update on Tuesday would improve their skills in disease identification and their understanding of how to respond.

Besides Dr Bariana, the speaker list at the update would include specialist disease pathologists Steven Simpfendorfer and Greg Platz.