From 19 October to 6 November, two postgraduate students from the University of the Free State undertook a study visit to our facilities in Worcester. Makemelo Emily Tsotetsi and Arinao Zwothe Magwaba spent these three weeks learning from our team and crammed in as much experience as they could. Wilku …
CenGen is pleased to announce the appointment of Elsabet Wessels as our Acting Chief Scientist, marking an exciting new chapter for the organisation. Elsabet has been an integral part of the CenGen team since 2011, joining after completing her Master’s degree in Genetics at Stellenbosch University. Over the past 15 …
Today we say goodbye to our founding director. Renée Prins is handing over the reins after 23 years of dedication and hard work; building a successful company that actively contributes to the agricultural industry and creates opportunities for local scientists. Renée leaves a lasting legacy that will continue to manifest …
We are excited to celebrate another milestone at CenGen: The successful loading of our very first RNA flow cell on the Oxford Nanopore PromethION 2 Solo sequencer! This marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter as we venture into plant transcriptomics and gene annotation. Petruné Reitsma, who joined our …
Years of dedicated field trials in both South Africa and America have culminated in the publication of a peer-reviewed article on stem rust (and leaf rust). It is not all doom and gloom, as various genomic regions have been identified providing resistance to stem rust that can be bred into …
CenGen hosted a SACTA (South African Cultivar and Technology Agency)-funded geneWorkshop with exceptional grade 12 Agricultural Sciences learners from Sinenjongo Secondary School located in Milnerton. We were first introduced to the school by their Agricultural Sciences teacher, Mr Wilson Bope, who attended a geneTeachers Workshop in 2023. Because of his …
Herbicide resistant weeds are a global problem and are increasingly a challenge for local producers. There are various ongoing projects that try to tackle the problem with focused efforts to collectively address this as an industry. Through a DSTI-TIA-GrainSA initiative, the Herbicide Action and Resistance Platform (HARP) was formed and …
The CenGen team in collaboration with Provar with funding from HORTGRO are doing very exciting work aimed at exploiting DNA markers to the benefit of the pome fruit industry. Anna Mouton wrote two articles, Genetic fingerprinting of apple rootstocks (p. 60) and Developing genetic tests for pome fruit (p. 68), …
Ayesha was recently awarded her PhD (Plant pathology, Stellenbosch University) for her study: Genetic and biochemical investigation of resistance to Fusarium and Gibberella ear rot in South African maize. The CenGen team will miss your visits to the lab. All the best for your new position with Corteva AgriscienceTM!
Our exciting project to sequence local South African barley varieties featured in the March edition of SA Graan/Grain magazine! Read more on page 62 of the March edition:
