The Current Threats of Wheat Stripe Rust (<i>Puccinia striiformis f.sp.tritici</i>) Disease and the Consequence for Food Security in Ethiopia

Abstract

Wheat is the fourth most important staple food crop in Ethiopia and grown in a wide range of agro-ecology. It accounts more than 15% of the total cereal output. The country is the second largest wheat producer in sub-Sahara Africa, and the crop is becoming a key strategic crop for improving food security. However, the national average yield is 2.73 tones/ha, which is far less than from the potential yield of 8 to 10 tones /ha. This low productivity of wheat in Ethiopia is attributed to a number of factors, including biotic (diseases, insect pest and weeds) and abiotic (moisture, soil fertility and etc.). Among biotic factors stripe rust disease is the most series and wheat production bottle necks issue in the country. And in most wheat-producing areas, yield losses caused by stripe rust ranged from 2.7 to 96.7% depending on the degree of susceptibility of the cultivar, timing of the initial infection, rate of disease development, areas of hotspot and duration of disease. Despite its occurrence and distribution much still needs to be understood about its impact and management options of the disease. As a result, this review work was initiated to provide wakefulness and show the present threats of wheat stripe rust disease in Ethiopia. And the review was carried out from associated journals, theses, books and research papers. This review result revealed that knowledge gap, lack of attention, lack of coordination among Regions, Zones, Districts and Sectors, Shortage of resistant varieties and high fungicide price are some of the identified reasons in Ethiopia for the disease to occur regularly and epidemically as well. As the result of this, every year there is more than 10% yield loss (275,000 tones) that costs 94, 795 millions of US dollars. However, during epidemics the loss is much higher than this. Consequently, the disease is considered as one of the constraints for the country not to produce sufficient amount of wheat grain. As a result, in each year the country is imposed to continue importing millions of quintals of wheat grain from abroad that demands high foreign currency. Therefore, this review result conclude that to overcome this challenge the country has to implement more efforts in developing an effective and efficient wheat stripe rust management strategy.