Effect of Yellow Rust on Yield and Yield Components of Wheat

Stripe rust remains a significant threat in the majority of wheat growing regions of the world with potential to inflict regular regional crop losses ranging from 0.1 to 5 % with race events giving losses of 5 to 25 %.In most wheat producing areas, yield losses caused by stripe rust have ranged from 10-70 % depending upon the susceptibility of cultivar, earliness of the initial infection, rate of disease development and duration of the disease. Yellow rust has posed threat to wheat cultivation in the hills of Nepal. Nepal faced periodic epidemics in the past due to heavy out-break of yellow rust disease. The disease was most prevalent during seventies, when local landraces were extensively cultivated. In this study, an attempt had been made to assess the effect of stripe rust towards yield and yield attributing characters in the commercially grown wheat varieties in Nepal. The result of the study was very important to evaluate the economic impact of this disease thereby predicting the losses in different wheat varieties with different level of resistance against yellow rust.