Abstract Since emerging in Brazil in 1985, wheat blast has spread throughout South America and recently appeared in Bangladesh and Zambia. We show that two wheat resistance genes, Rwt3 and Rwt4 , acting as host-specificity barriers against non-Triticum blast pathotypes encode a nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat immune receptor and a tandem kinase, respectively. Molecular isolation of these genes allowed us to develop assays that will ensure the inclusion of these two genes in the wheat cultivars to forestall the recurrence of blast host jumps.

A wheat kinase and immune receptor form the host-specificity barrier against the blast fungus