Norman Borlaug and Wheat Stem Rust

Since his death in September, there have been news stories about Norman Borlaug, e.g., an obituary from the Telegraph that begins:

Norman Borlaug, who died on September 12 aged 95, won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his achievement in promoting the use of more productive cereal strains in order to feed the world’s vast population of the starving; his efforts to introduce hybrid cereal varieties into agricultural production in Pakistan, India, Mexico and other developing countries are estimated to have saved about a thousand million people from dying of hunger.

Borlaug spent his life on the borders of traditional agriculture and biotechnology and stood at the centre of the greatest and most dramatic success stories in world farming — the so-called “Green Revolution” of the 1960s. Perhaps more than anyone else, he was responsible for the fact that throughout the postwar era, except in sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were once widely predicted.

But Borlaug’s “Green Revolution” was not “green” in the modern sense. High yields demanded artificial fertiliser, chemical pesticides and new soil technology. As a result of this he was vilified by many in the environmental movement . . . .

Norman Borlaug spent his life in agricultural research and dealt with many aspects of technical agriculture.  His comprehensive biography number is 630.92 Agriculture—biography (built with 63 from 630 Agriculture and related technologies plus T1—092 Persons). (In the table of preference at the start of Table 1, T1—092 Persons is higher than T1—07 Education, research, related topics.)  An example of a work classed in 630.92 is The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger: An Authorized Biography.

There is not space in this blog entry to cover all the specific aspects of agricultural technology touched by Norman Borlaug; two closely related examples will have to suffice.  (There is also not space to consider the social, economic, and environmental aspects—fortunate and unfortunate—of the Green Revolution.)   Late in his life Borlaug was fighting a new outbreak of wheat stem rust.  The May 2009 issue of Science ran a story, “The Famine Fighter's Last Battle,” that began:

On a cold, January morning in 2005, a small plane landed outside the town of Njoro, Kenya, where a handful of scientists waited eagerly as the plane taxied. After the propellers stopped, an old man slowly climbed out and walked across the grassy airstrip. Norman Borlaug, then 91, had come from Nairobi to examine for himself the impact of a highly virulent race of stem rust, called Ug99, a plant pathogen that had recently crossed the border from Uganda and was now threatening wheat farmers around the world.

Few living people—scientists or farmers—had had any experience with outbreaks of stem rust. To Borlaug, however, it was a familiar enemy. After epidemics had devastated wheat fields in Mexico in the 1940s, Borlaug, who was working at an agricultural experiment station in Mexico, bred new varieties of wheat that could resist the disease. These varieties were a key component of the green revolution of the 1960s, helping to boost wheat yields in Mexico and avert famine in India, Pakistan, and elsewhere. Ever since, the world had seemed safe from stem rust. Now, the energetic, tenacious, Nobel Peace Prize–winner is trying once more to defeat the threat.

The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative carries on the work.  In June the Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled “A ‘Time Bomb’ for World Wheat Crop” that began:

The Ug99 fungus, called stem rust, could wipe out more than 80% of the world's wheat crops as it spreads from Africa, scientists fear. The race is on to breed resistant plants before it reaches the U.S.

The DDC number for wheat stem rust fungus is 633.119492 Wheat rusts (built with 633.11 Wheat plus 9 Injuries, diseases, pests from add table under 633–635 Specific plant crops, following footnote instruction at 633.11, plus 4 from 632.4 Fungus diseases, following add instruction at 9 in the add table, plus 92 from 579.592 Uredinales [Rusts], following the add instruction at 632.4).  An example of a work classed in 633.119492 is Stem Rust of Wheat.

The DDC number for breeding new wheat varieties based on studies of their genetics (as well as genetic engineering of new wheat varieties) is 633.11233 Agricultural genetics of wheat (built with 633.11 Wheat plus 233 from 631.5233 Agricultural genetics, following instructions at 1–6 Cultivation and harvesting from add table under 633–635).  An example of a work classed in 633.11233 is Genes for Rust Resistance in Wheat.