The success of our DIPLOMICS-sponsored geneWorkshops programme for high school Life and Agricultural Sciences learners has recently been shared in the popular local magazine, Koringfokus/Wheat focus. The article is free to read here. Thank you to Mariana Purnell for following and documenting our ventures!
Dr Sandra Lamprecht (right) and her team at the ARC-PHP site in Stellenbosch labouring many hours to do phenotypic scoring of FCR symptoms. Photo credit: Thabo Phasoana Hard work across many years and two continents has paid off! Our research on Fusarium Crown Rot (FCR) has just been published in …
We are delighted to share Iingcinga Zethu Senior Secondary school’s ongoing improvement in the pass rate of the Agricultural Sciences subject in the NSC examination! CenGen established a relationship with this Ceres-based school in 2023 when Ms Mbonjwa, an Agricultural Sciences educator at the school, requested our support with her …
On 1 March, Dr Renée Prins talked to Eloise Pretorius of the Afrikaans radio programme RSG Landbou. The converstion circled, among other things, around what the goal of the DIPLOMICS-initiative of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation is. Renée also shared details of CenGen’s social impact project that is …
At the end of 2024 we can look back on many successes. The Veldkos | Field Food DNA project was one of the most rewarding projects we embarked on this year! It concluded on 29 November with the scientific team presenting their plant genome sequencing results to the public. Have …
Thanks to the funding from DIPLOMICS and support from the WCED, we hosted a total of 199 participants across 10 workshop days for Agricultural- and Life Sciences teachers and learners in 2024. Most of our geneWorkshops were hosted the new CenGen|DIPLOMICS training laboratory. Participants were exposed to actual laboratory protocols …
We conducted a successful technical dry run for The Veldkos Final Presentation Live Stream earlier today. We’re thrilled about this groundbreaking event—a first for South Africa! Grade 11 learners from the Cape Winelands Education District made a significant contribution to the draft genome assembly of a Veldkos (Field Food) plant …
In a number of SAWCIT-funded research projects, we are attempting to map the chromosome positions of novel rust resistance genes that could be used in future by barley and wheat breeders – adding to the many we have made available to them in the past. An important aspect of this …
F.l.t.r.: Amy Coetzee (UFS; MSc student), Prof Sakkie Pretorius (UFS; Research fellow), Wilku Meyer (UFS; PhD candidate and new CenGen staff member), Diana Mngomezulu (UFS; MSc Agric candidate). Two post-graduate UFS candidates visited us for a week-long training (3-7 June 2024) and support with their molecular genetics work. Prof Sakkie …
