Abstract only

About 20 species of barberry are reported from Pakistan. Locally these species are known as Sumbal or Kwary and acknowledged as medicinal plants in both urban and rural communities. Barberry sits at the nexus of people and nature from at least three critical perspectives: its potential role in the life history of cereal rust fungi; its medicinal properties; and its role in the ecology of fragile slopes in important watersheds, including tributaries to the Indus River. We are launching longitudinal observation and characterization studies that will inform all three arenas, but our primary interest is to determine the role of barberry in the life history of wheat rust pathogens in Pakistan. Barberry is common in the Murree hills north of Islamabad, and near the Rust Research Facility of PARC. In 2011, we observed aecia on what appeared to be two species of barberry in the valleys and hills between Murree and Naran, including at PARC?s offseason (summer) wheat nursery site at Kaghan. Grasses with uredinia were observed under barberry at Kaghan. The pathogen species causing aecial infections on barberries and and associated grasses remain unknown; and connections between the aecial and uredinial infections are yet to be determined. Our poster will update our efforts to establish an interdisciplinary and international team of collaborators to generate knowledge on the distribution of barberry species and their roles in rust epidemiology in Pakistan.

Global Wheat Program

Text in English

INT2733

CIMMYT Staff Publications Collection