SARChI Chair in Disease Resistance and Quality in Field Crops

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Prof. Maryke Labuschagne leads the NRF SARChI Chair in Disease Resistance and Quality in Field Crops at the University of the Free State. The chair advances food security and nutrition in Africa through innovative plant breeding research focused on disease resistance, crop quality, and nutritional improvement of staple crops. Through its multidisciplinary research and postgraduate training programs, the chair contributes to the development of resilient, high-quality crop varieties that support sustainable agricultural production and improved livelihoods across the continent.

 

 

Maryke2020



Main Supervisor

Prof Maryke Labuschagne
Department of Plant Sciences (Plant Breeding)
University of the Free State

E: Labuscm@ufs.ac.za
T: +27 51 401 2715


Kwame 

    Participating Researcher

   
    Dr Kwame Shamuyarira
    Department of Plant Sciences (Plant Breeding)
    University of the Free State

     E: ShamuyariraKW@ufs.ac.za
     T: +27 51 401 3217






Botma       

     Participating Researcher


     Prof Botma Visser
     Department of Plant Sciences (Botany)
     University of the Free State

     E: VisserB@ufs.ac.za
     T: +27 51 401 3278






Willem2       

     Participating Researcher


     Prof Willem Boshoff
     Department of Plant Sciences (Plant Pathology)
     University of the Free State

     E: BoshoffWHJ@ufs.ac.za
     T: +27 51 401 2466






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Focused Research

Headlines regarding hunger and food security, despite recent advances, remain alarming: One in every nine people on earth goes to bed hungry each night; 800 million people do not eat enough to be healthy. Sub-Saharan Africa has the second most number of undernourished people in the world; a third of all deaths in children under five in developing countries is linked to undernourishment. Food production in most of sub-Saharan Africa has not kept pace with the population increase.

The UFS was allocated a South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Disease Resistance and Quality in Field Crops by the National Research Foundation, managed by Prof Maryke Labuschagne, which is now in its second five-year cycle. The chair has a strong focus on advancing food security and nutrition in South Africa and the rest of Africa, contributing to poverty reduction and achieving sustainability goals. The chair focuses on plant breeding for disease resistance and quality in field crops.

Projects done under the auspices of the chair by a team of MSc and PhD students, as well as three postdoctoral fellows include:

 

  • Monitoring the rust disease causing fungal populations of important crops in South Africa
  • Survey and genotypic characterisation of rust species of South African grasses
  • Genetic reconstruction of South African cereal rust populations using herbarium specimens
  • Sequence analysis of specific genes in the South African wheat stem rust population
  • Genetic and functional analysis of tolerance against fungicide application in the South African wheat stem, stripe and leaf rust populations
  • Inhibition of wheat stem, stripe and leaf rust urediniospore germination and growth from smoke derived compounds
  • Molecular survey of Berberis species in South Africa
  • Molecular and biochemical characterisation of adult plant disease resistance response of wheat varieties against stem rust infection
  • Investigating fitness factors other than virulence that may result in the dominant occurrence of wheat rust races in South Africa
  • The molecular basis of all stage resistance of selected South African wheat cultivars and potential new germplasm sources
  • Improving combined rust and Fusarium head blight resistance in pre-breeding wheat lines
  • Comparison of pre-breeding wheat lines with different levels of Fusarium head blight resistance to the accumulation of Fusarium mycotoxins
  • The influence of heat and drought stress on gluten protein and quality in durum and bread wheat
  • The expression and influence of the wheat breadmaking gene in South African commercial bread wheat cultivars, and its influence on gluten protein and quality
  • Quality and gluten protein characteristics of a world-wide collection of durum wheat cultivars
  • Resistant starch in South African wheat cultivars as a source of dietary fibre
  • Proteomics as a tool for gluten protein analysis under biotic and abiotic stress
  • Maize, cassava and sorghum biofortification for zinc, iron, provitamin A, and essential amino acids
  • Nutritional value of soybean, cowpea and bambara, and genetic improvement of nutritional value
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Recent Publications

 

SARChI chair Research outputs (2023-2025)



Quality of Field Crops  

Reveglia, P., Blanco, M., Cobos, M.J., Labuschagne, M., Joy, M., Rubiales, D., 2025. Metabolic profiling of pea (Pisum sativum) varieties in changing environments: Implications for nutritional quality in animal feed. Food Chemistry 462: 140972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.140972

Mbuma, N.W., Steyn, P.J., Laurie, S.M., Labuschagne, M.T., Bairu, M.W., 2025. Phenotypic diversity of released South African bred potato varieties for tuber yield and processing quality. Potato Research 68: 1397-1417. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11540-024-09790-5.  

Endalamaw, C., Nida, H., Tsegaye, D., van Biljon, A., Herselman, L., Labuschagne, M., 2025. Genetic diversity and genome-wide association study of grain quality in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) landrace collections. Plant Breeding 144: 617-640. https://doi.org/10.1111/pbr.13280.

Matjeke, M.B., Labuschagne, M., Gerrano, A.S., Minnaar-Ontong, A., Mbuma, N.W., 2025. Cowpea genetic analysis: integrating heritability, combining ability, and heterosis for grain yield and morphological traits. Euphytica 221: 96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-025-03520-9.

Endalamaw, C., Tsegaye, D., Nida, H., van Biljon, A., Herselman, L., Labuschagne, M., 2025. Environmental impact on grain quality in Ethiopian sorghum landraces. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research 21: 101916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2025.101916

Matjeke, B.M., Labuschagne, M., Gerrano, A.S., Minnaar-Ontong, A., Mbuma, N.W., 2025. Correlations between grain yield, its components and nutritional traits for cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) F1 progenies and their parental genotypes. South African Journal of Botany 187: 268-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2025.10.027.  

Endalamaw, C., Tsegaye, D., van Biljon, A., Herselman, L., Labuschagne, M., 2025. Kernel composition in sorghum landraces revealed via analyses of genotype-by-environment interactions. PLoS ONE 20(4): e0320513. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0320513. 

Matjeke, M.B., Labuschagne, M., Gerrano, A.S., Minnaar-Ontong, A., Mbuma, N.W., 2025. Heritability and expression of yield and yield related components in cowpea, an underutilized crop in Africa. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 9: 1588245. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2025.1588245.

Endalamaw, C., Menamo, T.M., Girma, F., Wondimu, Z., Labuschagne, M., 2026. Genome-wide association study identifies consistent genomic loci for yield and nutritional quality in sorghum landraces. The Plant Genome 19: 270201. https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.70201

Endalamaw, C., Shamuyarira, K., Mekonnen, T.W., Labuschagne, M., 2026. Grain and biofuel production potential of sweet sorghum genotypes under variable fertilizer regimes in Ethiopian agroecologies. Cogent Food and Agriculture 12: 2635772 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311932.2026.2635772 

Sivhada, R., Boshoff, W., van Biljon, A., Labuschagne, M.T., 2025. The impact of wheat stripe rust in the presence of resistance genes Yr9, Yr10, and Yr15 on gluten proteins: Insights from size-exclusion high-performance liquid chromatography analysis. Applied Food Research 5: 100684. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.afres.2024.100684

Endalamaw, C., Nida, H., Tsegaye, D., van Biljon, A., Herselman, L., Labuschagne, M., 2025. Genetics of sorghum: grain quality, molecular aspects, and drought responses. Planta 261(3): 47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-025-04628-x

Matongera, N., Ndhlela, T., van Biljon, A., Kamutando, C.N., Cairns, J.E., Baudron, F., Labuschagne, M., 2023. Genetic variation of zinc concentration in zinc-enhanced quality protein, provitamin A and normal maize under optimal, low nitrogen and drought stress conditions. Plants 12: 270. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12020270

Akhtar, S., Mekonnen, T.W., Mashingaidze, K., Osthoff, G., Labuschagne, M., 2023. Heterosis and combining ability of iron, zinc and their bioavailability in maize inbred lines under low nitrogen and optimal environments. Heliyon 9: e14177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14177

Amegbor, I.K., van Biljon, A., Shargie, N., Tarekegne, A., Labuschagne, M.T., 2023.  Combining ability estimates for quality and non-quality protein maize inbred lines for grain yield, agronomic and quality traits. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 7:1123224. 

Akhtar, S., Mekonnen, T.W., Osthoff, G., Mashingaidze, K., Labuschagne, M., 2023. Genotype by environment interaction in grain iron and zinc concentration and yield of maize hybrids under low nitrogen and optimal conditions. Plants 12: 1463. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12071463.  

Abdi, N., Van Biljon, A., Steyn, C., Labuschagne, M., 2023. Zn fertilizer and mycorrhizal inoculation effect on bread wheat cultivar grown under water deficit. Life 13: 1078. https://doi.org/10.3390/life13051078  

Ntswane, M.E., Labuschagne, M.T. Mbuma, N.W., 2023. Phenotypic diversity among cowpea mutants and accessions for grain yield and yield components. South African Journal of Botany 161: 798-808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2023.09.026

Labuschagne, M.T., Guzman, C., Crossa, J., van Biljon, A., 2023. Determining factors of durum wheat bread loaf volume and alveograph characteristics under optimal, drought and heat stress conditions. Journal of Cereal Science 114: 103791. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcs.2023.103791 

Mekonnen, T.W., Ceronio, G.M., Labuschagne, M.T., 2023. The influence of planting window on yield stability of maize hybrids in semi-arid areas. South African Journal of Botany163: 511-522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2023.11.007

Mekonnen, T.W., van Biljon, A., Ceronio, G.M., Labuschagne, M.T., 2023. Effects of planting date on grain yield and quality traits of maize hybrids. Heliyon 9: e21660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e21660 

Labuschagne, M.T., 2023. Biofortification to improve food security. Emerging Topics in Life Sciences 7(2): 219-227. doi: 10.1042/ETLS20230066

Disease Resistance


H. Bilal, W.H.P. Boshoff, L. Mohase 2025. Puccinia triticina and salicylic acid stimulate resistance response in Triticum aestivum against Diuraphis noxia infestation. Plants 14(3): 420. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants14030420 

Chen et al., 2025. A wheat tandem kinase sensor activates an NLR helper to trigger immunity. Science 387: 1402–1408. http://doi.org/10.1126/science.adp5034 

L.A. Maphobole, B. Visser, W.B. Meyer, C.M. Bender, Z.A. Pretorius, W.H.P. Boshoff. 2025. Characterisation of Puccinia sorghi isolates from South Africa. Plant Disease 109 (10: 2070-2079. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-12-24-2585-SR 

I. du Toit, B. Visser, L. Rothmann, W.H.P. Boshoff 2025. Triazole fungicide sensitivity among South African Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici isolates. South African Journal of Plant and Soil 42: 24–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/02571862.2025.2498020

B. Visser, C.M. Bender, T. Terefe, Z.A. Pretorius, W.H.P. Boshoff 2025.  Wheat rust surveillance in South Africa – a molecular approach. South African Journal of Botany 185: 205-212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2025.08.008

B. Visser, W.H.P. Boshoff, Z.A. Pretorius 2025. First Report of Rust Caused by Phakopsora nishidana on Ficus natalensis in South Africa. Plant Disease 108: 1892. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-07-25-1388-PDN

T.G. Terefe, W.H.P. Boshoff, R.F. Park, Z.A. Pretorius & B. Visser 2024. Wheat stem rust surveillance reveals two new races of Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici in South Africa during 2016 to 2020. Plant Disease 108:20-29. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-06-23-1120-SR

T. Hewitt, E.C. Henningsen, D. Pereira, K. McElroy, E.S. Nazareno, S. Dugyala, H. Nguyen-Phuc, F. Li, M.E. Miller, B. Visser, Z.A. Pretorius, W.H.P. Boshoff, J. Sperschneider, E. Stuckenbrock, S.F. Kianian, P.N. Dodds, M. Figueroa 2024. Genome-enabled analysis of population dynamics and virulence associated loci in the oat crown rust fungus Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 37(3):290-303. https://doi.org/10.1094/MPMI-09-23-0126-FI Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37955552.

W.H.P. Boshoff, B. Visser, C.M. Bender, Z.A. Pretorius 2024. Pathogenicity of Puccinia porri on Allium species and varieties in South Africa. Australasian Plant Pathology 53: 15-30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13313-023-00960-6

A. Bryan, A. Korolev, S. Bergmann, W.H.P. Boshoff, K. Flath, A.F. Justesen, P. Schulz, B. Visser, D.G.O. Saunders 2024. Comparative genomics identifies genetic markers linked to structural variations that differentiate Puccinia graminis formae speciales. Plant Pathology 73: 1542-1552. https://doi.org/10.1111/ppa.13890

B. Visser, W.H.P. Boshoff & Z.A. Pretorius 2024. First report of rust caused by Phakopsora nishidana on creeping fig, Ficus pumila, in South Africa. Plant Disease 108: 1892. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-12-23-2794-PDN

N. Chiuraise B. Visser, A. Marè, and W.H.P. Boshoff 2024. Occurrence and characterisation of Puccinia triticina in Zimbabwe. Canadian Journal of Plant Pathology 46, 509-523. https://doi.org/10.1080/07060661.2024.2356192

Cavalet-Giorsa et al., 2024. Origin and evolution of the bread wheat D genome. Nature 633, 848–855, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07808-z

R. Prins, C. de Klerk, W.H.P. Boshoff, C.M. Bender & Z.A. Pretorius 2024. Mapping of resistance loci in wheat line Milan/S87230//Babax to South African races of Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici. Euphytica 220:162 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-024-03415-1

T.G. Terefe, B. Visser, Z.A. Pretorius, & W.H.P. Boshoff 2023. Physiologic races of Puccinia triticina detected on wheat in South Africa from 2017 to 2020. European Journal of Plant Pathology 165: 1-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10658-022-02583-x

M. Chemonges, L. Herselman, Z.A. Pretorius, M.N. Rouse, A. Marè & W.H.P. Boshoff. 2023. Mapping and validation of all-stage resistance to stem rust in four South African winter wheat cultivars. Euphytica 219: 11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10681-022-03143-4

M.S. Mafa, B. Visser, W.H.P. Boshoff, G. Kemp, O. Alexander, H.D. Castelyn. 2023. Flagging defensive roles of carbohydrate-active enzymes and carbohydrates during Puccinia triticina-wheat interactions. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry 124: 101947. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmpp.2023.101947

M.S. Mafa, N. Lebusa, T. Gumani, G. Kemp, B. Visser, W.H.P. Boshoff, H.D. Castelyn. 2023. Accumulation of complex oligosaccharides and CAZymes activity under acid conditions constitute the Thatcher+Lr9 defence responses to Puccinia triticina. Biologia 78: 1929-1941. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-023-01405-7

G. Yang, N. Zhang, W.H.P. Boshoff, H. Li, B. Li, Z. Li, Q. Zheng 2023. Identification and introgression of a novel leaf rust resistance gene from Thinopyrum intermedium chromosome 7Js into wheat. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 136(11): 231 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00122-023-04474-z


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BLOEMFONTEIN CAMPUS FACULTY CONTACT

Elfrieda van den Berg (Marketing Manager)
T: +27 51 401 2531
E:vdberge@ufs.ac.za

QWAQWA CAMPUS FACULTY CONTACT

Dilahlwane Mohono (Faculty Officer)
T: +27 58 718 5284
E:naturalscienceqq@ufs.ac.za

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