Climate change and its influence on occurrence of yellow rust in Serbia

Abstract

There are challenges in monitoring the occurrence of rusts since population structure of wheat pathogens continuously change under selection pressures of agroecological conditions, resistant varieties and applied pesticides. Climate-change impacts on occurrence of yellow rust in Serbia were estimated in experiments involving efficacy testing for fungicides and breeding material resistance. The significant influence of climatic elements and varieties on disease index of yellow rust was confirmed and the most influencing were average temperatures in January (P = 0.000), variety (P = 0.000) and interaction between year and variety (P = 0.000). Furthermore, yield loss was significantly affected by the disease index of yellow rust (P = 0.000) and varieties (P = 0.000), but relationship of disease index and yield loss was not straightforward.