Launch of the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology (CTHB)

The Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology, one of seven research groups to have been allocated status and funding as centres of excellence, was officially launched on 31 January 2005. This Centre of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the NRF is hosted at the Forestry and Agriculture Biotechnology Institute (FABI) of the University of Pretoria.

 
 

Photo left to right: Mike Wingfield (FABI), Robin Crewe (Vice-Principal, UP), Rob Drennan (NRF), Braam van Wyk (UP), Brenda Wingfield (FABI), Calie Pistorius (Principal and Vice-Chancellor, UP)
 

At the launch, guests and students were welcomed by the Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Calie Pistorius. The Vice-Principal: Research, Professor Robin Crewe, spoke about the Centres of Excellence and research at the university; and Dr Rob Drennan of the NRF congratulated Prof Mike Wingfield, Director of the new Centre and his team on the honour of being one of the six groups to be charged by the DST and NRF with taking research to new heights. The new Centre is to concentrate its research efforts on the health of “indigenous” or “native” trees.

 

Guest speaker, Professor Braam van Wyk, emphasised the rich diversity of southern African trees and highlighted specific regions where the trees display particularly noteworthy features. Van Wyk highlighted the importance of plants and trees as they are able to exist without animals and humans, but neither animals nor humans can exist without them as they provide habitat, shelter, food, materials and medicines, to name only a few of their uses. Plants are often perceived to be inanimate and thus their value and vulnerability are not always fully appreciated.

 
Among southern African tree species, there are not many, other than the mopane, that are wind pollinated and therefore few native trees dominate any one vegetation type. This accounts for the diversity and richness of tree and plant species in southern Africa as compared with many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, for example Europe. “One of the important tasks, therefore, of the new Centre of Excellence will be to attempt to identify and, where appropriate, control and eradicate diseases of plants and trees so as to conserve this rich heritage and resource,” said Van Wyk.
 

He suggested that the new Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology should aim to care for the survival of all species of plants and not only those of economic value at present. “It is a fact that obscure and little known indigenous tree species may harbour pathogens that could have devastating effects on commercial tree crops. Likewise, pathogens introduced with commercially grown trees may spread to native trees, resulting in their demise,” according to Van Wyk. “The Centre is a manifestation of the foresight and need to take care of the future of these living organisms with which we share the planet.”

 

Wingfield’s team at FABI are well experienced in researching diseases of commercial forest plantation trees through the long-standing and highly successful Tree Protection Cooperative Programme. Wingfield highlighted some of the successes of this Programme and was confident that the solid research base and expertise established through the cooperative programme would assist in developing the new research foci of the Centre of Excellence. He stressed that the objectives of the new Centre did not pose a threat to the work of the Programme. He was confident that the research efforts and foci of the two programmes would complement each other and he looked forward to the new challenge that the establishment of the Centre of Excellence presents to the group.

FABI