Awwal 05, 1432, Feb 08, 2011, SPA -- King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) is participating in a research project conducted by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) entitled "Responding to the Transboundary Threat of Wheat Black Stem Rust", known internationally as (ug99). The specialists from the City's Atomic Energy Research Institute are working alongside the officials in charge of the file of disease (ug99) at the Ministry of Agriculture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to fight this epidemic in addition to its containment and building a defensive line against it in the Middle East. The specialists are growing local economic crops through the use of nuclear technology called "Mutation Induction". Earlier, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recognized that the strain (ug99) which causes the disease of the Black Rust of Wheat Stem, forms a major threat to the cultivation of wheat and now it is widespread in all parts of East Africa, Yemen, the Sudan, and Iran, and it is expected to spread towards North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It is noteworthy that The Ministry of Agriculture affirmed that wheat varieties planted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are resistant to the disease of the Black Rust of Wheat Stem which has spread in Yemen.
