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Feds Help Canada Prepare for Wheat Stem Rust, Ug99 with Continued Research Investment

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

There’s good news for Canadian wheat producers.

Government of Canada researchers are making progress in protecting wheat crops from the potentially devastating wheat disease known as Ug99.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced Wednesday, a $1.26 million investment to continue the research. This will mark the second phase of funding for Ug99. In 2009, the government provided $13 million towards the cause.

"The discoveries coming out of this research will protect farmers' livelihoods and help provide food security in Canada and around the world," Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said in a release.

Since 2009, the research team has successfully discovered three genes, which provide resistance to Ug99. Currently, molecular markers are being developed, which will be helpful for future wheat breeding efforts. The additional funding will allow researchers to genetically map the sources of resistance, furthering efforts to be proactive with the disease, should it to occur in Canada.

The disease, Ug99, is a wheat stem rust, which was first discovered in Uganda in 1999. Researchers estimate about 90 per cent of crops from Africa and Western Asia are already being affected. Wheat grown in Canada is vulnerable to the disease.

Eventually, the research will be used for practical purposes, to incorporate resistance to Ug99 into various wheat lines. The hope is that new cultivars will have resistance genes to be able to fend off rust pathogens from adapting and from becoming resistant.

 


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The 12-day war between Iran-Israel came to an end sending crude oil futures plunging as the big fund speculators removed the war risk premium.

The weather risk premium in the Ag complex is sending corn, wheat and soybean futures lower on month-end selling ahead of the market moving USDA quarterly grain stocks and acreage reports on June 30th.

Instead, funds were chasing and sending tech stocks higher with the S&P 500/NASDAQ indexes setting new all-time record highs!

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Feed in the form of soybean meal futures for livestock producers got cheaper, trading to new contract lows.

The Stats Canada seeded acreage update was bullish canola and wheat.