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A preliminary report on genetic diversity in populations of sugarcane rust in KwaZulu-Natal.

In 2000, the newly released sugarcane variety N29, that had shown only mild rust symptoms during selection, became severely infected with brown rust, caused by Puccinia melanocephala. This change in rust susceptibility could have been due to a change in climatic conditions or to the development of a new race of P. melanocephala. Concerns were also raised about the possibility of orange rust, caused by P. kuehnii, being present in the South African sugar industry for the first time, particularly when orange pustules were observed in some areas. Microscopic observations of the orange, brown and black spores collected from four different areas in KwaZulu-Natal indicated the presence of P. melanocephala and not P. kuehnii, and this was confirmed by amplifying the D1/D2 region, which is the most variable region in the large ribosomal sub-unit of the genome, using NL1 and NL4 primers and sequencing the cloned products. Those sequences that could be successfully aligned indicated that genetic diversity existed in the different samples of P. melanocephala collected from three of the four sampled areas in KwaZulu-Natal. Further work will be carried out to confirm this result and to identify different populations in other sugarcane growing areas.