From 2-8 October, members of the EPPI research group in FABI visited SAPPI’s  Riverdale site plantations in KwaZulu-Natal to perform in-field inoculation of Fusarium circinatum on 3296 hybrid pines. This material will be used to carry out transcriptomics analysis and plants will also be phenotyped in November to perform QTL analysis for Fusarium circinatum resistance. Joining this field trip were: Prof. Sanushka Naidoo, Dr Erik Visser, Demissew Teshome, Myriam Solis, Shae Swanepoel, Sean Schultze, Bianca Hattingh, Tebogo Molemela, Tshoganyetso Motete, Yuvaan Bhimsan, Tanya Pretorius, and Michal Slupski.  We thank the SAPPI staff for their incredible support and collaboration in this activity, especially to Prof. Jolanda Roux and Nicky Jones.