Plant Pathology

The Department has a large number of cooperative agreements at the national and international level. Nationally, these include cooperation with the Deciduous Fruit Producers’ Trust (DFPT) (phytosanitary pathogen lists for deciduous crops); the Department of Agriculture (pathogen lists of deciduous crops); Plant Quarantine Services on an ad hoc basis (quarantine pathogens); the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Infruitec Nietvoorbij (grapevine research projects); Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI), University of Pretoria (characterisation of Ceratocystis isolates; banana diseases and pitch canker of pine trees); AlternaFruit (identification of pathogens on alternative fruit crops); ARC Grain Crops Institute and Plant Protection Research Institute (PPRI) (toxin-producing Fusarium spp. in maize and wheat); Elsenburg Agricultural College (Fusarium diseases on wheat); SAB Miller (Management of Fusarium head blight of barley); iThemba Laboratory, Stellenbosch (mutation breeding of maize); Cape Town University (genetic manipulation of maize).  At the international level there is collaboration with CBS, the Netherlands (characterisation of grapevine trunk disease pathogens); Lincoln University, New Zealand (characterisation of Cylindrocarpon isolates); Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, USA (the Fungal Tree of Life (AFTOL) project); School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University, Australia (characterisation of Plasmopara viticola and Phytophthora populations in South Africa); USDA-ARS, Wenatchee, USA (the role of Pythium and Phytophthora in the decline of grapevines as well as the etiology of apple replant disease in South Africa); Department of Plant Pathology, Cornell University, USA (the stable transformation of Phytophthora species); Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, USA (the etiology of apple core rot diseases); Plant Research International Wageningen, the Netherlands (toxin-producing Fusarium spp. in maize); Bonn University, Germany (plant improvement with endophytes); Bioversity International, NARO (Uganda) and ISAR (Rwanda) (control of Fusarium wilt of bananas in Africa); Genetwister, Wageningen, The Netherlands (genetic manipulation of maize); International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Nigeria and Uganda (Plant Health for Africa); Bioversity International, France, The Philippines and Uganda (Fusarium wilt of bananas); University of Bonn, Germany (bio-enhancement of bananas).