ABSTRACT
Progress in understanding fungal diseases affecting sugarcane: rusts R. Stuart Rutherford, South African Sugarcane Research Institute (SASRI) and University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
1 Introduction
2 Biology of rusts
3 Host plant resistance
4 Control of rusts
5 Brown rust
6 Orange rust
7 Tawny rust
8 Conclusion
9 References
Rust fungi (Uredinales or Pucciniales) are a globally distributed order of obligate parasitic fungi occurring on vascular plants, comprising c. 7800 species in c. 166 genera and 14 families (Kirk et al., 2008; Aime et al., 2014). The majority of species occur in the genera Puccinia and Uromyces, for which there are over 5000 and 1500 taxon names, respectively. The disease caused by these fungi is also referred to as ‘rust’. The typical symptom is a ‘rust-coloured’ (often orange or yellow) pustule on a plant leaf. Economically, rust fungi cause enormous crop losses, most notably in wheat which is affected by three globally distributed rust species (Hovmøller et al., 2010).
