Wheat Rust - Northern, Southern and Western Regions

Stem Rust

Key strategies

• Grow resistant varieties to prevent yield losses and reduce the build-up of stem rust inoculum.
• Eliminate volunteer wheat plants over summer/autumn (the ‘green bridge’) to reduce the carryover of stem rust inoculum between seasons.
• Monitor your crop to detect infection at the earliest stage possible.
• Be particularly alert during spring rain and warm, humid weather. These conditions favour stem rust development.
• Foliar fungicides can assist with stem rust management, but are of limited effectiveness by the time plant head infection occurs.

Stripe Rust

Key points

• The most powerful tool available to growers to minimise the impact of the disease is resistant varieties.
• Rust diseases grow and reproduce only on living plants. Eliminating volunteer plants (the ‘green bridge’) over summer/autumn reduces the carryover of rust inoculum between seasons.
• Fungicides for controlling stripe rust should be regarded as a support and not a substitute for growing resistant varieties.
• Monitor your crop to detect infection at the earliest stage possible.
• Cool, moist and humid conditions favour the development of stripe rust.
• Where very susceptible varieties of wheat are infected with stripe rust, resulting losses can be as high as 80%.

Leaf Rust

Key points

• Growing resistant varieties is the key to minimising yield losses, reducing the build-up of leaf rust inoculum, and reducing the chance of new pathotypes (strains) developing.
• Rust diseases require living plants to grow and reproduce. Therefore, eliminating volunteer/weed wheat plants (the ‘green bridge’) over summer/autumn can reduce the carry over of leaf rust, and other rust inoculum, between seasons.
• Warm, moist autumn conditions favour the development of leaf rust.
• Foliar fungicides protect against infection but do not cure existing infections.
• Monitor your crop to detect infection at the earliest stage possible.

Use www.grdc.com.au/TT-WheatRust to keep up-to-date

Region North, South, West

• 1.74 mb GRDC Tips and Tactics Stem Rust Wheat stem rust is an occasional, but devastating disease of wheat with the potential to cause crop failure. It can occur in all grain growing regions where susceptible varieties are grown.
• 2.04 mb GRDC Tips and Tactics Stripe Rust Wheat stripe rust is a fungal disease of wheat, barley, triticale and some grass weeds. It can cause losses of 60–80% in susceptible to very susceptible wheat varieties.
• 2.17 mb GRDC Tips and Tactics Leaf Rust Humid conditions and warm temperatures between 15°C and 20°C favour leaf rust epidemics in wheat crops.