Grain production in the early years of the British colonisation of Australia was characterised by a lack of expertise of farmers, a paucity of farm animals and equipment and the poor work ethics of convicts. In 1803, just when wheat production was increasing and becoming less risky, stem rust of wheat caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis f.sp. tritici was discovered by an exiled Irish rebel Joseph Holt, on Captain William Cox’s Brush Farm. Stem rust became an intermittent and often serious disease culminating in a series of epidemics in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Growing varieties less prone to rust was a key recommendation from a series of rust-in-wheat conferences held from 1891 to 1896. It was William Farrer who was the first in Australia to develop new wheat varieties that resisted the ravages of rust principally by maturing earlier. The rust outbreaks were also catalysts for the New South Wales and Victorian governments to employ Australia’s first plant pathologists, Nathan Cobb and Daniel McAlpine, respectively. A year later, Henry Tryon was employed by the Queensland government as its first vegetable pathologist, although he had conducted plant disease investigations as early as 1889.

英国殖民澳大利亚初期，粮食生产的特点是农民缺乏专业知识、农场动物和设备匮乏以及囚犯职业道德差。1803 年，正当小麦产量不断增加且风险降低时，由小麦柄锈菌 ( Puccinia graminis f.sp.)引起的小麦茎锈病发生了。小麦是由流亡的爱尔兰叛军约瑟夫·霍尔特在威廉·考克斯上尉的灌木丛农场发现的。茎锈病成为一种间歇性且往往严重的疾病，最终在十九世纪下半叶引发了一系列流行病。种植不易锈病的品种是 1891 年至 1896 年举行的一系列小麦锈病会议的一项重要建议。威廉·法雷尔 (William Farrer) 是澳大利亚第一个开发新小麦品种的人，这些新小麦品种主要通过成熟来抵抗锈病的破坏早些时候。锈病爆发也促使新南威尔士州和维多利亚州政府分别聘请澳大利亚第一位植物病理学家内森·科布和丹尼尔·麦卡尔平。一年后，亨利·特赖恩 (Henry Tryon) 被昆士兰州政府聘为第一位蔬菜病理学家，尽管他早在 1889 年就进行了植物病害调查。