Although stem rust has been controlled by means of resistant cultivars, leaf and stripe rust continue as problems for many growing areas of the world. Wheat Rusts: An Atlas of Resistance Genes has been prepared by specialists from one of the leading international laboratories, and illustrates with colour photographs typical resistance phenotypes associated with most known genes for resistance to the three rust diseases of wheat. Relevant details for each gene include chromosome location, aspects of genetics and pathogen variation, the effects of environment on expression, origin, availability in genetic and breeding stocks, and use in agriculture. This atlas includes an introduction to host:pathogen genetics, methodologies for wheat rust research and breeding for resistance.

This book comprehensively introduces stripe rust disease, its development and its integral control. Covering the biology, genetics, genome, and functional genomics of the pathogen, it also discusses host and non-host resistance, their interactions and the epidemiology of the disease. It is intended for scientists, postgraduates and undergraduate studying stripe rust, plant pathology, crop breeding, crop protection and agricultural science, but is also a valuable reference book for consultants and administrators in agricultural businesses and education.

World population is growing at an alarming rate and may exceed 9.7 billion by 2050, whereas agricultural productivity has been negatively affected due to yield limiting factors such as biotic and abiotic stresses as a result of global climate change. Wheat is a staple crop for ~20% of the world population and its yield needs be augmented correspondingly in order to satisfy the demands of our increasing world population. “Green revolution”, the introduction of semi-dwarf, high yielding wheat varieties along with improved agronomic management practices, gave rise to a substantial increase in wheat production and self-sufficiency in developing countries that include Mexico, India and other south Asian countries. Since the late 1980’s, however, wheat yield is at a standoff with little fluctuation. The current trend is thus insufficient to meet the demands of an increasing world population. Therefore, while conventional breeding has had a great impact on wheat yield, with climate change becoming a reality, newer molecular breeding and management tools are needed to meet the goal of improving wheat yield for the future. With the advance in our understanding of the wheat genome and more importantly, the role of environmental interactions on productivity, the idea of genomic selection has been proposed to select for multi-genic quantitative traits early in the breeding cycle. Accordingly genomic selection may remodel wheat breeding with gain that is predicted to be 3 to 5 times that of crossbreeding. Phenomics (high-throughput phenotyping) is another fairly recent advancement using contemporary sensors for wheat germplasm screening and as a selection tool. Lastly, CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein mediated genome editing technology has been successfully utilized for efficient and specific genome editing of hexaploid bread wheat. In summary, there has been exciting progresses in the development of non-GM wheat plants resistant to biotic and abiotic stress and/or wheat with improved nutritional quality. We believe it is important to highlight these novel research accomplishments for a broader audience, with the hope that our readers will ultimately adopt these powerful technologies for crops improvement in order to meet the demands of an expanding world population.

The idea for this book was conceived by the late Dr. Irvine A. Watson of the University of Sydney, and he developed the first outline. I was then invited by Dr. Watson to share in its writing. Unfortunately, shortly there after, recurring heart problems forced him to curtail his activities and with draw from the project. He died before the book could be completed. Dr. Watson's intention was to produce a very practical book that would provide wheat breeders with all of the information necessary to breed success fully for resistance to the three wheat rusts: leaf rust, stem rust, and yellow rust. It was intended to be very specific in describing procedures to be used and at the same time provide all of the necessary theoretical background. I hope that I have been successful in meeting these objectives. The book assumes that the reader has some knowledge of plant pathology, genetics, and plant breeding. Extensive use has been made of the literature, but it was not possible to cite all of the papers on a given topic. In making a choice, an attempt was made to choose key papers or more recent papers that provided references to the earlier literature. Acknowledgements This book was written partly at the University of Saskatchewan and partly at the University of California, Davis, while I was on a sabbatical leave.

From February 24 -28, 1992 an international symposium on Durability of Disease Resistance was held at the International Agricultural Centre in Wageningen, the Netherlands. The symposium, organized by the Department of Plant Breeding of Wageningen Agricultural University and the Centre for Plant Breeding and Repro duction Research, CPRO-DLO, was part of the DGIS funded programme Durable Resistance in Developing Countries. Without any form of prevention or protection nearly all crops will be seriously or even severely damaged by a range of pathogens. In modern agriculture man has been able to control many if not most pathogens using i) pesticides, ii) phyto sanitary methods such as control of seed and plant material in order to start a crop disease free, iii) agronomic measures such as crop rotation, iv) disease resis tance or combinations of these measures. Over the years the use of pesticides has increased enormously and so did the pro blems associated with pesticide use, such as environmental pollution and building of resistance and tolerance to these pesticides in the pathogens. The use of resis tance too increased strongly over the years and here too problems arose.

Disease resistance is one of the major factors that can be improved to sustain yield potential in cultivated crops. This book looks at disease resistance in wheat, concentrating on all the economically important diseases - their economic impact and geographical spread, breeding for resistance, pathogen variability, resistance mechanisms and recent advances made on resistance genes. Newer strategies for identifying resistance genes and identify resistance mechanisms are discussed, including cloning, gene transfer and the use of genetically modified plants. It is suitable for researchers and stu.