A team of ten FABIans including FABI Director Prof. Bernard Slippers attended the 21st annual gala dinner and awards ceremony of the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF). The event, commonly referred to as the “Science Oscars” was held at Emperors Palace on Thursday 27 June.
FABI founding Director and current IUFRO President, Professor Mike Wingfield was this past week interviewed by the China People’s Daily, China’s biggest newspaper group.
Professor Zander Myburg, research leader of the Forest Molecular Genetics (FMG) Research Group in FABI was awarded the prestigious Biotechnologist of the Year Award by the Institute of Forest Biosciences (IFB).
FABI celebrated the first publication of a paper in an ISI-rated scientific journal by four students in the TPCP and CTHB research groups at a publication party on 27 June.
The South African Regional Meeting (SARM) of the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA) was held during the week of 24 June in George, which is home to the George (Forestry) campus of Nelson Mandela University (previously Saasveld).
FABI PhD candidate Quentin Guignard recently returned from a three week visit to the University of Würzburg in Germany where he received training to operate an electroretinogram (ERG).
Recently, Drs Mesfin Gossa and Trudy Paap assessed plant health in eight gardens across South Africa, including Arderne Gardens, Durban Botanic Garden, Pretoria National Zoological Garden, and Harold Porter, Kirstenbosch, KwaZulu-Natal, Pretoria and Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens.
Chrizelle Beukes successfully defended her PhD thesis on 18 June, fulfilling all the requirements for a PhD degree.
For her precision and dexterity, FABI PhD student Benedicta Swalarsk-Parry was crowned “Pipetting Ninja” at a mini pipetting competition hosted by Inqaba Biotec at FABI on 5 June.
Dr Trudy Paap’s seminar “Plants, people and places” on 10 June chronicled the movement of plants through history and warned of the dangers of unregulated importation of plant material.
Thaumastocoris peregrinus, the bronze bug, is not only a pest attacking Eucalyptus in South Africa but is also a problem in several other African countries.
The University of Pretoria honoured its best academics on 21 May, including seven researchers from FABI.
FABI recently hosted a meeting for French researchers in South Africa.
A MSc student in Plant Breeding from Maseno University in Western Kenya, made his second visit to the Molecular Plant-Pathogen Interactions research group in FABI.
Carol-Ann Segal won the prize for best MSc Research Poster presentation at the 30th Annual SANSOR Congress.
FABI MSc graduate, Martin Wierzbicki scooped the 2018-2019 Blue Sky Young Researchers and Innovation Award in Vancouver, Canada, on 14 May.
FABI is now home to the Mike Wingfield Library, a collection of more than 1300 books donated to the FABI Archive by Prof. Mike Wingfield.
A group of FABIans accompanied some of the overseas guests who attended the TPCP Annual Meeting, on a week long field trip.
Tree health practitioners discuss technological advances and re-emerging threats to the world’s forests on the last day of the 30th TPCP Annual Meeting
At this year's Annual TPCP meetings, Prof. Mike Wingfield shared seven attributes he considered central to the success of the 30-year-old programme.
The Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (TPCP) hosted its 30th annual meeting at the University of Pretoria’s Future Africa campus on 14 May.
The DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology (CTHB) hosted its 15th annual meeting at the University of Pretoria’s Future Africa campus on 13 May.
FABI enjoyed a significant presence at the IUFRO meeting focused on shoot, leaf and wilt diseases of forest trees held from the 6th to the 10th May in Italy)
A team of four FABIans, together two staff members of the South African Pecan Producers Association (SAPPA), spent last week surveying pecan orchards in the Northern Cape for the presence of PSHB (Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer) infestations.
The University of Pretoria (UP) has appointed Dr Cobus Visagie as Associate Professor and will join FABI from June 2019. Dr Visagie currently works as senior researcher at the ARC, and hold extraordinary positions at UP and Stellenbosch University.
Congratulations to those FABIans that were capped at the Autumn Graduation Ceremony of the University of Pretoria.
Danielle Roodt successfully defended her PhD entitled “The evolution of xylogenesis in the vascular plants” during her Prestige Seminar on 23 April, becoming the sixth FABIan to be awarded their PhD this year.
Profs Wilhelm de Beer from FABI, and Francois Roets from Stellenbosch University, participated in a number of PSHB related meetings in the Cape Peninsula during the past week.
Erik Visser successfully defended his Ph.D. after he presented a Prestige Seminar entitled “Transcriptomic model of resistance mechanisms in the Pinus-Fusarium circinatum interaction” on 18 April.
FABI Ph.D. candidates Benedicta Swalarsk-Parry and Khumbuzile Bophela attended the inaugural Black Women in Science (BWIS) gala dinner on 6 April.
Mondi South Africa, part of the leading international paper and pulp company began its investment in the Mondi Chair in Forest Pathology in 1994. On Monday 17 April Mondi held a celebration at their Homeleigh Guest House in Kwambonmbi to recognize the contributions of the Mondi Chair in Forest Pathology.
Caryn Oates become the fourth FABIan to be awarded their Ph. Leptocybe invasa is a gall wasp that causes significant damage to Eucalyptus plantations in South Africa. It was found that L.
Zander Human successfully defended his PhD thesis after presenting his prestige seminar in the FABI auditorium on 16 April, meeting all the requirements for a doctoral degree. Protea repens grow on nutrient-poor soil in the fynbos biome, a habitat prone to fire. Zander identified not only fungal communities present in the structures but also bacterial communities.
FABI team members Prof. Lazarus Takawira, a PhD student under the supervisor of Dr Steven Hussey and the author of the paperback Imagine Africa, flew the FABI banner high by scooping the Best Student Poster award. Lazarus’ research made extensive use of a JGI Community DNA Synthesis Grant awarded to his supervisor, Dr Hussey, in 2016. Captions: 1. 2.
FABIans Dr Marc Bouwer, Luki-Marie Scheepers and Rosa Knoppersen had a short field trip to Bulwer in April to to service and remove pine emperor moth pheromone traps that were previously deployed in that area.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has published a “Guide to the classical biological control of insect pests in planted and natural forests”. The guide includes information on the processes leading to classical biological control (CBC), the implementation of CBC and post-release monitoring and evaluation of CBC agents.
