A mystery disease hit South Africa's pine trees 40 years ago: new DNA technology has found the killer

By Andi Wilson, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Pretoria
Brenda Wingfield, Previous Vice President of the Academy of Science of South Africa and DSI-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics, Professor in Genetics, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria
Michael John Wingfield, Professor, Advisor to the Executive, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria

In the 1970s and 1980s, pine trees growing in various forestry plantations in South Africa’s Western Cape province began to die in patches. These trees succumbed to a mysterious root disease and the patches expanded gradually. Spontaneous regrowth of seedlings in the patches died dramatically.

As in many other true crime dramas, the finger was initially pointed at the most likely suspect: the root-infecting Phytophthora cinnamomi. Its name – plant (phyto) destroyer (phthora) – reveals its power to cause…

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