Wheat blast is a fast-acting and devastating fungal disease that threatens food safety and security in the Americas and South Asia. This subset contains materials with putative tolerance to wheat blast.

First officially identified in Brazil in 1984, the disease is widespread in South American wheat fields, affecting as much as 3 million hectares in the early 1990s. In 2016, it crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and Bangladesh suffered a severe outbreak. Bangladesh has since released a blast-resistant wheat variety — developed with breeding lines from CIMMYT — in 2017, but the country and region remain extremely vulnerable.

Source: CIMMYT Wheat Germplasm Bank