Science Alert May 26, 2023
Hundreds of fungal diseases affect the 168 crops listed as important in human nutrition by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. According to an international team of researchers (UK, Germany) despite widespread spraying of fungicides and the planting of cultivars bred to be more disease resilient, growers worldwide lose between 10% and 23% of their crops to fungal disease every year, and another 10–20% post-harvest. The five most important calorie crops — rice, wheat, maize (corn), soya beans and potatoes — can be affected by rice blast fungus, wheat stem rust, corn smut, soybean rust and potato late blight disease respectively. And losses from these fungi equate to enough food to provide some 600 million to 4,000 million people. Such losses are likely to increase in a warming world. According to the researchers much more awareness of the plight of the world’s crops as a result of fungal disease is needed, as is more government and private- sector investment in crop fungal research… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Clouds of dust caused by a fungus engulf a crop field. Credit: Darren Hauck/Reuters.