Emergence of wheat blast in India and Bangladesh: an increasing risk for Europe?

In Europe, wheat is the most widely planted food crop and the leading source of plant proteins in human food. In 2016, 62 M ha were planted and 250 M T were harvested in Europe (vs 220 M ha and 749 M T worldwide; source FAOSTAT). Wheat blast, caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, emerged and is a devastating disease of wheat in South America. It severely threatens wheat production in Brazil (30% yield loss in 2010) where the first outbreaks were reported 30 years ago (http://blog.cimmyt.org/?p=3707). In 2015, the disease emerged in Bangladesh (Islam et al. 2016) and spread the following year to India. Phylogenetic studies based on whole genome sequence clearly showed that this outbreak was due to…