An epidemic of Fusarium head blight swept through the United states between 1998 and 2000, costing the wheat industry an estimated US$ 2.7 billion. That’s right: billion.
Salvation came from Chinese and Japanese landraces, especially a Chinese wheat called Sumai 3. To prepare for the inevitable mutation of the fungus, scientists at the USDA have broadened their search for resistance. They examined 87 Asian varieties of wheat, many of them old landraces, and found good levels of resistance in 26 of them. Better yet, some of the resistance genes seem to be different from the ones derived from Sumai 3, which means that they might offer protection against different varieties of the fungus.
Just knowing that various resistance genes exist, and having markers to select more resistant crosses from breeding efforts means that future outbreaks can probably be more effectively dealt with, which is reassuring. More to the point, for our purposes, this research raises again the question: how can anyone doubt the value of genebanks? Just one disease cost just one country US$2.7 billion over three years. Genebank accessions contain the solutions. Do you really need to know the cost of every accession to decide whether genebanks are worthwhile?