The leaf rust fungus can only survive in living leaf tissue. It is not soilborne or borne in crop residue. In the summer, it survives on volunteer wheat. In the fall, spores blow to newly planted wheat. Early planted wheat sometimes sustains heavy rust infection and may turn yellow in the fall. This does not seem to cause winterkill of the wheat. Leaf rust can survive the winter as latent infections if green leaves survive the winter. In the early spring, pustules erupt and fresh spores blow to new leaves. If rust does not survive through the winter in Kansas, spores eventually blow up from Oklahoma or Texas. However, the delay often reduces the final severity of the disease. The rust fungus moves back to volunteer wheat around harvest time.
- Hassan Z. M. 1983. Epidemiological studies of leaf rust of wheat caused by Puccinia recondita sp. Tritici, Ph.D. thesis. Kansas State University. 76 pp.
- Hassan, Z. M. and Kramer, C.L.1986. Summer and winter survival of Puccinia recondita and infection by soilborne urediniospores. Trans. Br. Mycol. Soc. 86:385-372.
- Eversmeyer, M. G. , Kramer, C. L. and Hassan, Z. M. 1988. Environmental influences on establishment of Puccinia recondita infection structure. Plant Disease 72: 409-412
- أ. د. محمد المليجي
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