Plant health system is an important element for the control and management of plant pests to ensure food production and security as well as safe trade. The objectives of this study were to: identify the existing knowledge gaps on current plant health system at the national and provincial level, identify critical areas to be addressed in the current plant health institutional framework and identify the existing limitations and risks on current legislation. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data was analysed statistically using the one-way frequency and Spearman’s Rank correlation coefficients.The study found that the Provincial Departments of Agriculture (PDAs) (below 50%) lack knowledge of plant health system as compared to the national authorities: DAFF and DEA (above 70%). The study also found that there were no formal linkages between the national and provincial authorities. The study further revealed that there is a need for harmonisation of relevant legislation. It can be concluded that there are knowledge gaps on plant health matters between the national authority and the provincial level and that there are no formal linkages within the spheres of government on plant health matters. / Agriculture, Animal Health and Human Ecology / M. Sc. (Agriculture)

Xanthomonas axonopodis pv citri (Xac), uma bactéria gram negativa, é a causadora da doença Cancro Cítrico que ocasiona enormes prejuizo na citricultura brasileira. Com o seqüenciamento do genoma deste patógeno foram encontradas inúmeras sequências codificadores com funções desconhecidas. Assim com a finalidade de estudos funcionais do genoma de Xac, foram gerados mutantes randômicos usando o transposon EZ::TN, que induziu disrupção aleatoria de seus genes com o intuito de avaliar que genes inativados afetam a patogenicidade da bactéria. Para o mapeamento do local de inserção do transposon foi desenvolvida uma metodologia baseada na técnica de PCR touchdown utizando oligonucleotídeos semidegenerados. A confiabilidade deste novo método foi comprovada através do mapeamento por Southem blot de alguns mutantes. Conseguiu-se mapear 90 mutantes randômicos com este método. Os testes de patogenicidade em citros mostraram mutantes com sua patogenicidade afetada observando-se variações nos sintomas da doença. Mutantes interessantes contendo uma ORF hipotética inativada ou tendo uma inserção num espaço intergênico foram achadas, sendo também detectados alguns mutantes com nocaute de genes nos seus plasmídeos pXac33 e pXac66. / Xanthomonas axonopodis pv citri (Xac), a gram-negative bacteria, is the causer of the Citrus Canker disease that produces enormous losses to the brazilian citrus sector. Many coding sequences with unknown functions were found in the genome sequence of this pathogen. Therefore, with the goal of functional studies of Xac\'s genome, random mutants using the EZ::TN transposon, have been generated, which carry aleatory disruptions of their genes, with the aim of evaluating inactived genes that potentially affect bacterial pathogenicity. A method based in the PCR touchdown technique using semidegenerate primers was developed for the mapping of the transposon insertion site. The reliability of this new method was tested by means of mapping some mutants using Southern blot. Ninety random mutants were mapped with this method. The pathogenicity tests in citrus showed mutants with their pathogenicity affected and variations in the disease symptoms were observed. Interesting mutants containing an inactive hypothetical ORF or with an insertion in intergenic regions have been found, and also some mutants with inactivated genes in their plasmids pXac33 and pXac66 were detected.