FABI tree health team visits colleagues at the China Eucalyptus Research Centre (CERC) 2015-10-28
During the IUFRO Eucalyptus 2015 Conference held in Zhangjian city, in the Guangdong Province of China, Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (TPCP) research team members had the opportunity to visit the laboratories of their colleagues at CERC. The Tree Health Team at CERC has worked closely with the TPCP team for about 15 years and has collectively produced a substantial base of research of mutual interest to the two teams. During this period of time, the research team at CERC has grown substantially, initiating and catalyzing numerous collaborative research projects that have led to numerous Ph.D’s being completed at FABI.
Funding for this growing collaboration has come from numerous different sources including various bilateral agreements between the Chinese and South African Governments. While the collaborative research covers a broad range of three health issues, there is a strong focus on problems relating to the health of Eucalyptus trees in plantations. The team at CERC is led by Dr ShuaiFei Chen who completed a Ph.D. at FABI and has subsequently initiated numerous collaborative research projects with colleagues at FABI. During the visit, Dr Chen presented the FABI team with a carving of two horses running on clouds. The horses are symbols of good luck and strength in Chinese custom and are said to be sharing their speed with that of the clouds. Dr. Chen commented that the two horses, in his view, represented the FABI and CERC teams "running together in concert and benefitting from their collaboration".