Global wheat production could drop by 13% by 2050 due to spread of downy mildew

Climate change threatens crop yields and food security worldwide, and plant diseases are one of the main risks. An international team of researchers led by Professor Sentold Asseng from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has shown that the further spread of a fungal disease in grain could reduce global wheat production by 13% by 2050. This is reported by AgNews. It is noted that currently the global area of wheat crops in the world is 222 million hectares, and the volume of the global harvest is 779 million tons. Diseases of wheat, like other plant species, are now spreading faster than before because of climate change. One of them is piricular disease caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. In warm and humid regions, the fungus magnaporthe oryzae has become a serious threat to wheat production, it was first discovered back in 1985. It first spread from Brazil to neighboring countries. The first cases outside of South America occurred in Bangladesh in 2016 and in Zambia in ...