September and October were, as usual, a busy time outside of the lab for the CenGen scientists as they trekked across the country to join collaborators in the field on trial site visits and producers’ days.
The first of these was Kelly Jordaan and Diana Mngomezulu accompanying the SABBI team to score barley trials in the Southern Cape. The next day, Diana joined Wilku Meyer on a trip to the Swartland in search of a specific disease on oats as part of a prospective collaboration with an Australian university.
At the end of September, Elsabet Wessels traveled to Marble Hall in Limpopo to attend the Syngenta irrigation wheat breeding team at their annual producers day. Stephan de Groot, Syngenta wheat breeder, invited Elsabet to talk to the producers about marker-assisted selection (MAS) and the many ways it contributes to a breeding programme.
In October, Carla de Beer attended the Provar Rootstock Trial Field Day at Greyton, WC, while Renée Prins traveled KZN on multiple occasions to visit the wheat disease trials.
Field visits such as these are important for us as scientists to see the phenotypic expression of the genes that we screen for in the lab. For Kelly, Diana and Elsabet it was a good experience to be able to see firsthand the advances that have been made in the breeding programmes with the help of the MAS projects at CenGen. We are thankful toward our collaborators for inviting us to walk through their trials with them and we look forward to the 2026 season!
Below are some pictures of our travels.
Photos credit: R Wessels.
