Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

UFS plant scientists receive prestigious SAPBA awards

10 June 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Read More Collage — Prof Zakkie Pretorius, left, plays a significant role in providing pathology support to the plant breeding industry.Prof Liezel Herselman contributes to plant breeding in Southern Africa by training and mentoring the plant breeders of the future.

The Southern African Plant Breeders’ Association (SAPBA) recently bestowed prestigious awards upon Prof Zakkie Pretorius, Research Fellow in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), and Prof Liezel Herselman, Associate Professor in the same department. This institution strives to maintain high ethical standards and norms, contributing to stable, sustainable agriculture.

During the 13th Southern African Plant Breeders’ Association symposium, Prof Herselman was presented with a Fellow Award and Prof Pretorius with Honorary Membership. They received the awards for their services to and promotion of the SAPBA objectives, together with their exceptional contributions to plant breeding.

Provide food for the nation

Over the years, Prof Pretorius, who has extensive expertise in diseases of field crops – more specifically the rust diseases of small grain cereal crops – has played a significant role in providing pathology support to the plant breeding industry. He has also conducted ground-breaking pathology research on rust diseases in field crops. In 2019, he co-authored an article that appeared in Nature, the world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal. He is also shortlisted as a 2020 finalist in the Lifetime Award and Special Theme Award (Plant Health) of the National Science and Technology Forum. Furthermore, he regularly attended and participated in biennial conferences and supervised plant breeding students working on plant disease projects.

Prof Herselman contributes to plant breeding in Southern Africa by training and mentoring the plant breeders of the future. “As a lecturer of fourth-year and honours Plant Breeding students, as well as supervisor and promoter of master’s and doctoral students, I am in the fortunate position to teach and mentor my students in one of the newest fields of plant breeding, namely marker-assisted plant breeding. All future plant breeders need this knowledge to make a success of their breeding programmes. Our students are the future plant breeders who will provide food to the nation,” she says.

"As a plant pathologist, I am privileged to have been able to contribute to the quest for disease resistance in crop improvement and to have been recognised for it.” – Prof Zakkie Pretorius

The highest honour

Prof Pretorius view recognition by the industry – in this case, the plant breeding fraternity – as the highest honour for someone working in agricultural science. “As a plant pathologist, I am privileged to have been able to contribute to the quest for disease resistance in crop improvement and to have been recognised for it. I am also extremely grateful to colleagues and co-workers who have contributed over many years to the establishment of a productive and influential research group at the UFS,” he says.

Prof Herselman shares this sentiment. She says: “It means so much to me to know that I have made a difference and an impact on my students’ lives. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to work with under- and postgraduate students and to see them grow.”

She continues: “We strive to send out well-rounded students who can make a difference in the workplace and the community. This award means that I have succeeded in this goal, even though I do my work because I am passionate about it and not to receive recognition.”

Fight against fungal disease continues

Prof Pretorius continues to be involved in studies on host plant resistance and pathogenic variability.

As a molecular plant breeder, Prof Herselman is pushing on with research focusing on the development of wheat lines with improved disease resistance. The work that she is doing makes a difference on both national and international level. “As part of my current research programme, we have made rust- and Fusarium head blight-resistant wheat lines available to South African breeding companies for use in their breeding programmes. The lines developed at the UFS will in a small way contribute towards the fight against fungal diseases in South Africa, thus securing the yield and livelihoods of farmers and consumers,” she says.

Her master’s and doctoral students who have completed their studies, also take the knowledge they gained at the UFS back to their countries and workplaces where they ultimately add value, especially contributing towards the fight against hunger.

"“We strive to send out well-rounded students who can make a difference in the workplace and the community. This award means that I have succeeded in this goal, even though I do my work because I am passionate about it and not to receive recognition.” – Prof Liezel Herselman

News Archive

Eugene de Kock, FW de Klerk and forgiveness – Prof Gobodo-Madikizela’s take on gestures of reconciliation

2015-02-06

What Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies at the University of the Free State, found over the years talking to Eugene de Kock, was a man tortured by his past. By the deeds he has committed.

“As a result he was confronting these – not as a cog in a machine – but as a person who actually did the deed himself,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela said during an interview [https://soundcloud.com/primediabroadcasting/dr-gobodo-on-de-kock-parole] with Pippa Hudson on Cape Talk. A man taking personal responsibility.

Against the backdrop of De Kock recently granted parole, what, then, is the nature of forgiveness?

“Often people think when they forgive, you forgive and forget. That’s not the point,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela says. “Forgiving, in fact, I found is the wrong word. We are using forgiveness for a range of responses. What I find useful in this kind of work is to think about how people change, how people are transformed. In other words, to think about our empathic connection to people who are our former enemies.” In other words: to reach a place where both parties can see each other as fellow human beings. “Somehow when a person expresses remorse – in the way Eugene de Kock has done – it opens a door for the different kinds of relationships to that traumatic past,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela says.

In an article for the Sunday Times, Prof Gobodo-Madikizela refers to the motion to immortalise F W de Klerk by renaming Table Bay Boulevard after him. In this piece, she clearly points out that De Klerk is not without blood on his hands. She agrees with Mayor Patricia de Lille’s support of this tribute to De Klerk, though, when De Lille refers to ‘the spirit of reconciliation that Tata Madiba believed in’.

Justice Minister Michael Masutha – who granted De Kock parole – and De Lille “are right in evoking the memory of Nelson Mandela through these important gestures of reconciliation,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela remarks. The need to return to Nelson Mandela’s vision, she adds, remains urgent.

Read Prof Gobodo-Madikizela’s full article, published in the Sunday Times, here.
For Prof Gobodo-Madikizela’s response to Eugene de Kock, FW de Klerk and reconciliation, read here.

For more information or enquiries contact news@ufs.ac.za

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept