stem rust
Americannoun
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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.
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any of the fungi causing such a disease.
Etymology
Origin of stem rust
First recorded in 1915–20
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But stem rust returned in the late 1990s and 2000s, with a variety called Ug99 that spread through Africa and parts of the Middle East.
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
