stem rust

American  

noun

Plant Pathology.

1. any of several fungal diseases of plants affecting the stems, especially a disease of wheat and other grasses characterized by pustules of red and then black spores.

2. any of the fungi causing such a disease.

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Etymology

Origin of stem rust

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

In the mid-twentieth century, devastation caused by stem rust spurred efforts to breed wheat strains that could resist the fungi.

From Nature • Feb. 1, 2017

A fungal pathogen of wheat, a stem rust dubbed Ug99, evolved to infect wheat varieties once resistant to the fungus.

From Slate • Apr. 1, 2014

Scientists have engineered wheat that is resistant to stem rust, a fungal disease that has ruined crops in Africa, Yemen and Iran.

From BBC • Jun. 27, 2013

Science news writer Erik Stokstad profiles Nobel Peace Prize-winner Norman Borlaug, who developed resistant varieties of wheat that protected the world against stem rust for decades.

From Science Magazine • Dec. 23, 2010

Borlaug landed in the valley in the 1940s as an agricultural adviser for the Rockefeller Foundation while the farmers around him were beset by a fungus known as stem rust.

From Washington Post