The man-made cereal triticale was fully resistant to the biotrophic diseases powdery mildew, leaf rust, yellow and stem rust from its introduction in Europe mid-1970s until about 1990. In following years, new races that were able infect at least some genotypes developed all four pathogen populations, resistance breeding came into focus. Here, we analyzed 656 winter cultivars 12 countries for th...

Rust fungi are a group of fungal pathogens that cause some of the world's most destructive diseases of trees and crops. A shared characteristic among rust fungi is obligate biotrophy, the inability to complete a lifecycle without a host. This dependence on a host species likely affects patterns of gene expansion, contraction, and innovation within rust pathogen genomes. The establishment of dis...

Populus cathayana Rehd., a dioecious tree species, is widely distributed in the northern, central and southwestern regions of China. In poplars, Melampsora larici-populina Kleb. is mainly responsible for rust disease, which is considered to be the world's most important disease of poplars. Yet, little is known about sex-related responses to rust disease in poplars. The purpose of this work was ...

We developed an evolutionary relevant model system, barley-Puccinia [corrected] rust fungi, to study the inheritance and specificity of plant factors that determine to what extent innate nonhost immunity can be suppressed. A mapping population was developed from a cross between an experimental barley line (SusPtrit) [corrected] with exceptional susceptibility to several heterologous [corrected]...

Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst) causes wheat stripe rust (also called yellow rust, Yr), one of the most important diseases worldwide. Characterization virulence in Pst populations is essential for developing cultivars with effective and durable resistance to control disease. A total 138 races, including 120 races that were not previously reported, identified from collections made Cana...