Sponsored by European and Mediterranean Cereal Rusts Foundation and CAAS, the 13th International Cereal Rusts and Powdery Mildews Conference was held in Bejing from August 29-31.

This conference was organized by the Institute of Plant Protection (IPP) of CAAS. About 300 representatives from more than 40 countries and international organizations participated in this event with focuses on five themes: 1) disease epidemics and forecasting; 2) pathogen population genetics and diversity; 3) pathogen genomics and the molecular biology of the host-pathogen interaction; 4) host resistance and; 5) the breeding and the strategy and technology of the disease IPM.


Cereal rusts and powdery mildews are major biological disasters threatening the production of cereals including wheat, barley, rye, oat, etc. The prevalence of wheat rust in Middle and West Asian and North Africa during 2009-2011 affected 30 million hectares lands and caused more than 1,000 million US dollar losses, while in China, affected area of wheat rust was about 4 million hectare every year since the 1950s. Powdery mildew is the second worst disease for wheat production, with annual affected area up to 6.6 million hectares and production loss over 300,000 tons.