Crop Protection
Key Areas
This programme develops integrated management strategies that minimise the effects of pests and diseases on crop production in a sustainable manner.
Research in this Key Area focuses on:
- Development of proactive threat specific counter-measures and biosecurity incursions plans;
- Generation of knowledge of the biology, pathogenicity and epidemiology of pathogens posing potential incursion threats to the industry, as well as the agroecology, behaviour and reproductive biology of new potential pests; and
- Development of improved procedures and diagnostic technologies to ensure that varieties released or propagated into the industry, or imported via the industry Quarantine Facility, are free of pathogens and pests. The information and knowledge gained in this Key Research Area are applied towards the development of Integrated Management tactics for potential new pathogen and pest incursions into the industry.
Research in this Key Area focuses on:
- Investigation of the biology and ecology of the primary pathogens and pests of the industry with a view to the development of integrated management tactics and knowledge exchange with the grower community; and
- Assessment of the impact on crop yield of the primary and emerging pathogens and pests in the industry to facilitate grower decision-making regarding the implementation of management tactics. The information and knowledge gained in this Key Performance Area are applied to the development of integrated management tactics for the major pathogens and pests in the industry.
Research in this Key Area seeks to develop knowledge regarding the biological basis of sugarcane resistance to pathogens and pests in order to develop approaches, resources and technologies to enhance resistance breeding in Commercial Breeding.
Research in this Key Area seeks to develop cost-effective technologies that permit the establishment of sugarcane agro-ecological environments in which pathogens and pests are suppressed to low levels by benign biological or ecological means.
Several complementary habitat management technologies are considered, including:
- Push-pull technology
- Biodiversity management, including wetland, riparian zone and vegetation corridor restoration;
- Crop husbandry, including crop rotation, use of fallow crops, nutrient management and crop residue management;
- The Sterile Insect Technique; and
- Parasitoid and entomo-pathogen release.
Investigations in this Key Research Area focus on the development of a suite of effective pathogen and pest control agents that are agriculturally, environmentally, ecologically and economically sustainable.
Research focuses on a series of technologies, including:
- Development of pheromones and traps to enable monitoring and rational agrochemical application programmes, primarily for eldana;
- Search for more benign alternative chemistries; and
- Development of superior application tactics and product formulations.
- Download list of agricultural remedies registered for use in South Africa.
Dr Lawrence Malinga
Current Projects
Variety Evaluation – Diseases
Additional chemistries and strategies for sugarcane pest and disease control
Sterile Insect Technique for eldana management: Field release trials
X-Ray Irradiation for Eldana SIT
Comparison of diversity and abundance of non-target organisms on Bt and non-Bt sugarcane.
Effect of genetically modified sugarcane in combination with sterile insect releases to control Eldana saccharina
Development of an IRAC laboratory-based Eldana saccharina resistance monitoring protocol
An investigation of insect trap designs and deployment using eldana attractants to monitor eldana infestation in Bt sugarcane
Agronomic assessment of the herbicide tolerance trait in Bt GM sugarcane
Prediction of quantitative resistance to sugarcane pests and diseases by means near infra-red spectroscopy
Spectroscopic determination of YSA-induced stress in sugarcane
A P&D risk model as a precursor to development of an early warning system (EWS)
Yellow sugarcane aphid and thrips varietal susceptibility
The effect of steel slag amendments on yellow sugarcane aphid infestations and cane yields.
An investigation of the population dynamics of yellow sugarcane aphid with a particular emphasis on movement patterns between plants
Biodiversity management and its place in sugarcane agriculture
The eldana microbiome
Use of boron for the control of Eldana saccharina and Fusarium in sugarcane
Determination of sugarcane yellow leaf virus elimination efficiency using molecular techniques
Protection of NovaCane® plantlets against smut and other fungal diseases
Understanding orange rust in the South African context