Reading the enemy: How genome science is reshaping the fight against wheat stem rust

In 2013, farmers in the highlands of Ethiopia began to notice something unsettling: a familiar variety of wheat was failing in an unfamiliar way. Stems weakened, plants collapsed, and fields that had once held firm against disease were suddenly vulnerable. Three years later, the same unease surfaced thousands of kilometers away, when wheat crops in Sicily—including prized durum varieties destined for pasta—succumbed to a fast-moving stem rust outbreak that baffled local farmers.