CenGen - Plant & Pathogen Genomic Services

Celebrating 15 years of excellence with new robotics!

CenGen celebrated their 15th birthday in style on 31 May 2018. At the same time, new, state of the art LGC robotic systems for high-throughput sample processing were inaugurated. These instruments were installed at CenGen through SAB & AB InBev Public Interest Commitment Investments to impact and benefit South Africa. Read more at https://www.netwerk24.com/landbou/Nuus/genetiese-maatskappy-spog-met-nuwe-robotstelsels-20180601

CenGen offers various genomic related services to plant breeders, producers and agricultural-related industries. The focus is to implement and utilise high-throughput molecular technologies in various applications involving crop and horticultural plants as well as fungi (e.g. wheat, barley, maize, grapevine, citrus, deciduous fruit- and nut trees, truffles and a range of plant pathogens).

CenGen customises each experimental layout in terms of size and specificity according to every client’s needs.

Applications include:

Cultivar identity determinations and purity testing using DNA fingerprinting techniques
Confirmation of the presence or absence of specific genes to assist in selection of breeding lines (marker-assisted selection)
Confirmation of correct species’ identity in the case of Tuber (truffles) before inoculating trees for truffle production.
CenGen is also involved in Research and Development through their involvement in various academic research projects.

Latest News, Events & Articles

Designing Future Wheat

In November 2018 Elsabet Wessels had the opportunity to attend the Designing Future Wheat (DFW) Course in Wheat Genetics at the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich, UK. She was one of only 16 participants from all over the world selected to attend this course. We are grateful towards Grain South Africa’s Winter rainfall regions… Continue Reading

Bioinformatics with Burger

As a result of a partnership agreement between CenGen and DIPLOMICS, three staff members of CenGen along with Marizanne Horn (Sensako) received a week of intense onsite bioinformatics training from Mr Burger van Jaarsveld, bioinformatics field applications specialist at ThermoFisher Scientific. The participants were taught basic operations in writing scripts in Linux, MySQL and Python.… Continue Reading

Some more travelling, meeting and learning

From 23 to 26 September 2018, four CenGen members (Renée Prins, Corneli de Klerk, Kelly Breeds and Lizaan Rademeyer) along with Marizanne Horn (Sensako) attended the 15th International Cereal Rusts and Powdery Mildews Conference 2018 in Skukuza. The conference focused on these two diseases in barley and wheat and was attended by leading researchers in… Continue Reading

“We’re here for the beer” at SABBI

Lizaan Rademeyer and Kelly Breeds attended the AB InBev Grower’s Appreciation day at the SA Barley Breeding Institute (SABBI) at Caledon on 20 September. It is an annual event aimed at recognising the partnership between AB InBev and local barley producers, as well as at showcasing the South African barley breeding and malting processes, bearing… Continue Reading

Travelling, presenting and connecting in September

CenGen’s staff hit the road to quite a number of diverse commitments in September. Corneli de Klerk presented a talk at the SANSOR Recapping Workshop on Wheat in Napier on 4 September. She informed the attendees about marker-assisted selection (MAS) – how it works and what value it adds to breeding programmes. On 10 September,… Continue Reading

Second Bioinformatics and Wheat Genomics workshop to be held in Worcester in 2019

As a follow up on the very successful Bioinformatics and Wheat Genomics workshop held in Worcester in June 2017, the UK Science UK Science & Innovation Network (South Africa) will be hosting a second workshop in Worcester on 4-8 February 2019. The first workshop was made possible by the Newton Fund Researchers Link Program, which aimed to establish and… Continue Reading

CenGen joins SABBI and Sensako at Roodebloem producers’ day

The second producers’ day of the Western Cape season was hosted by Overberg Agri at Roodebloem, Caledon, on 30 August. CenGen was represented by four team members: Lizaan Rademeyer and Kelly Breeds were stationed at SABBI’s field trial calling point with Rens van der Watt, newly appointed barley breeder at SABBI, while Corneli de Klerk… Continue Reading

Linking the lab to the wheat field: CenGen attends SSK producers’ day

The annual SSK Winter Grain Day hosted in conjunction with Joubert Boerdery and the Western Cape Department of Agriculture at Uitkyk, Riversdale, is an event that attracts many visitors. On 22 August, producers had the opportunity to attend talks on current topics such as land reform and visit trial sites to learn about new wheat,… Continue Reading

Talks of barley in the land of bagpipes and Irn Bru

At the end of June, Kelly Breeds attended the Second International Barley Mutants Workshop (IBMW2018) at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee, Scotland. This centre of excellence for barley research was the second host for this workshop that aims to bring together scientists who use barley mutant resources to understand several fundamental aspects and processes… Continue Reading

CenGen celebrates with UFS students

Three University of the Free State (UFS) students who have had ties with CenGen will be awarded their respective degrees at the June 2018 graduation ceremony in Bloemfontein. CenGen has, to a greater or lesser extent, been involved with the studies of Hester van Schalkwyk (PhD), Tegwe Soko (PhD) and Gerna Maree (MSc Agric). For… Continue Reading