With the COVID pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, many events had to be postponed or even cancelled. In other cases, innovativeness and technology made it possible for the event to continue, albeit in a different format. September usually is one of the busiest months at CenGen, with field trials, producers’ days and meetings at the… Continue Reading
On September 1st, with snow-capped mountains in the background, Benny Leriba has put down his roots in Worcester to work at CenGen as an intern, sponsored by the South African Cultivar & Technology Agency (SACTA). Already on his first day he had to spring into action with Alana showing him the ropes on entering accessions… Continue Reading
CenGen is excited to announce that Katlego Bennet Leriba will be joining the team at the start of September. He will assume the role of an intern laboratory technician, specifically working alongside Kelly Breeds on the Barley research and commercial projects. This position is made possible through funding kindly provided by SACTA. CenGen had hoped… Continue Reading
Another milestone was reached this month in our mission to explore Fusarium Crown Rot (FCR) resistance in wheat. The South African doubled haploid population used in this study was sent to our Australian collaborators late in 2018. After some time spent in quarantine, the population was released and has made it to the field. The… Continue Reading
Last year, we at CenGen were excited to announce the planting of the first field trial for our research project exploring the genetics behind Fusarium Crown Rot (FCR) resistance in wheat. By combining disease scoring information (resulting from the 2019 trial) with high throughput genotyping data we were able to gain some preliminary information about… Continue Reading
In early March, Kelly Breeds (CenGen Barley Research Lead) attended a Data Carpentry course at the Earlham Institute (EI), where she benefitted from the tutelage of Dr Robert Davey and other members of EI’s Data Infrastructure and Algorithms Group. Topics covered during the course included data organisation in spreadsheets, data cleaning in OpenRefine, data analysis… Continue Reading
From 24-28 February 2020, CenGen and Stellenbosch University had the privilege of welcoming three expert trainers from the UK and colleagues from across a range of South African research institutions for the third Bioinformatics and Wheat Genomics Workshop held at the Stellenbosch University Ukwanda campus in Worcester. This course, building on the success of the… Continue Reading
Kelly Breeds and Mignon de Jager recently visited SABBI to prepare for the barley field trials taking place in Greytown later in the year. As part of a Winter Cereal Trust funded project (WCT/B/2018/02), two mapping populations have been developed using accessions that provide resistance against stem rust, but do not carry the well-known Rpg1… Continue Reading
CenGen is extremely privileged to announce that Dr Xolelwa Zulu has been appointed as Independent Director of the company as from the 9th of December 2019. Dr Prins was first introduced to Xolelwa on a scientific tour to the UK, hosted by the British High Commission and Agbiz Grain. At the time, Xolelwa was the… Continue Reading
On 20 January, Marizanne Horn and Elsabet Wessels undertook the trek to Bethlehem, Free State, for project meetings with colleagues at the local Sensako breeding station. Marizanne, an employee of Sensako and industry placement at CenGen, met with Roean Wessels, Sensako’s sunflower breeder. Elsabet, who is responsible for the wheat MAS programme at CenGen, met… Continue Reading