The Internet will have the major role in a campaign to maximise adviser and grower ability to counter stripe rust, following early reports of the disease in cereals right across Australia’s eastern wheat belt.

The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) has worked with rust specialists from its research partners to help grains advisers and farmers access the latest information on stripe rust.

“Reference Point – stripe rust”  – is effectively a road map for stripe rust information, with active Internet links to the latest identification and management publications, recent Update papers, data on varietal sensitivity, fungicide information and labels and key wheat pathology contacts for New South Wales and Queensland.

E-mailed to some 1700 consultants, advisers and farmers across the grains belt, “Reference point – stripe rust” is also available on the GRDC GrainZone website www.grdc.com.au.

New South Wales Department of Primary Industries specialist rust pathologist Col Wellings says suspect disease samples coming into the Australian Cereal Rust Control Program at the University of Sydney’s Plant Breeding Institute at Cobbitty are in sufficient number and geographic spread to point to potential problems later this season.

“We have samples from across central to southern New South Wales – Cowra, Temora, Denilquin – north to Coolah, Gunnedah and Coonabarabran, and from as distant as St George in Queensland,” Dr Wellings said.  

“That’s virtually all of the northern and southern regions of eastern Australia, including Victoria but with the exception of South Australia at this stage. There are no reports from Western Australia.

“We had fewer samples at the same time last year, and they are a tad earlier this time as well. Stripe rust took off last year once warmer weather arrived and we must expect the same thing to occur this year, once the night temperatures begin to warm up.

“It would be a bit unusual to find a whole paddock infected at this stage but we are definitely looking at a potential problem once the higher temperatures come.”

Dr Wellings says the good news is that pathologists from state agricultural departments and the Australian Cereal Rust Control Program itself have been able to develop and recommend management strategies that will help growers limit crop damage from stripe rust. 

“Reference point – stripe rust” brings all this accumulated knowledge together in one readily accessible package.

Meantime scientists at Cobbitty would continue their rust identification service, with samples to be sent to The Australian Cereal Rust Survey, Plant Breeding Institute, PMB 11, Cobbitty, NSW 2570.

“We would ask growers or advisers posting samples for identification not to wrap them in plastic or bubblewrap, which causes any rust to germinate while they’re in the mail,” Dr Wellings said.  “Newspaper, or a plain paper envelope, is fine.”