FABI's presence was felt and seen at the Autumn Graduation Ceremony of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Science that took place on Wednesday 9 April. PhD's were awarded to seven FABI students, while six more earned MSc's and ten BSc Honours degrees. An additional eleven BSc degrees were awarded to students that have entered the postgraduate programme in FABI this year, or were mentorship students in a FABI programme last year. We congratulate and all these students with their achievements celebrate with them! We also wish those well who are leaving the University to pursue careers elsewhere and welcome those who are staying with us for another degree. Herewith the list of graduandi with their thesis titles: PhD Rodrigo Ahumada - Emerging new diseases of plantation-grown Pinus spp. in Chile Nicky Creux - In silica and functional characterization of the cellulose synthase 1 gene promoter of Eucalyptus trees Dawit Degefu - Ecology and genetic diversity of Coryphodema tristis on Eucalyptus nitens in South Africa Karen Eatwell - Remediation of instability in Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) in tree breeding populations James Harrison - Phylogeny of the Pegyline and taxonomy of selected southern African Leucopholina (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae}, with an emphasis on genera of agricultural concern Fahimeh Jami - Taxonomy and ecology of Botryosphaeriaceae associated with Acacia karroo in South Africa Eshchar Mizrachi - Functional genomics and systems genetics of cellulose biosynthesis in Eucalyptus MSc Jonathan Botha - Qualitative reporter gene and targeted yeast one-hybrid analysis of the Eucalyptus grandis SND2 promoter region Jane Bredenkamp - Characterization of tolerance to bacterial wilt in the model plant Arabidopsis *Caryn Oates - Transcriptional responses of Eucalyptus clones to the gall wasp, Leptocybe invasa *Darryl Herron - Characterization of Fusarium species from Pinus and Eucalyptus nurseries in Colombia and South Africa *Ronel Roberts - 'Candidatus Liberibacters' found in four indigenous Rutaceous species from South Africa Nicole Rudolph - Efficacy of selected rhizobacterial isolates for biocontrol of Rhizoctonia solani and growth promotion of maize in South Africa BSc Honours (Honours students of last year who did project with FABI supervisors): Juanita Avontuur *Colan Balkwill (prize for the top student in Genetics Honours) Angelique du Preez Afrah Khairalla *Marius Laubscher Vusi Letsoalo *Thandekile Mamni Kavani Sanasi Jennifer Wayland BSc (Including FABI mentorship students of 2013 and FABI honours students of this year): *Andrew Behrens (prize for top student in Genetics in third year) Yves du Toit Miranda Erasmus Asleigh Geldenhuys Kayla Noeth Boitumelo Ntlatleng Inge Pietersen Lizel Potgieter Elelwani Ramulifho Benedicta Swalarsk-Parry Karin van der Westhuizen Martin Wierzbicki ( degrees with distinction) More photo's on our website gallery.