FABIans Amy Collop and Elisa Pal travelled to Stellenbosch to attend an insect mass-rearing course.

Members of the MaPP visited visited various pecan orchards in the Northern Cape to monitor PSHB infestations.

FABIans took a break from their research activities and dressed up to attend the annual Year End Function hosted at the Future Africa Campus on 18 November.

The Macadamia Protection Programme attended the annual grower symposium organised by SAMAC.

During the week of 5 October, the Macadamia Protection Programme was in Mpumalanga for an on-going flower blight survey.

From 5-10 September, academic staff, postdoctoral fellows, and students from FABI attended the 36th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Chemical Ecology (ISCE).

From 28 June until 1 July, academic staff, postdoctoral Fellows and students from FABI attended the 22nd Biennial Entomological Society of Southern Africa (ESSA) Congress.

The Macadamia Protection Programme’s (MPP) ‘Mad-Macs’ team went on another field trip, this time to the KwaZulu-Natal south coast!

On Tuesday 20 April, members of the Macadamia Protection Programme (MPP) in FABI planted approximatively 300 macadamia trees from various different cultivars that are grown commercially by the industry.

The Macadamia Protection Program (MPP) is back in the field! MPP research group leader Dr Gerda Fourie, joined by MSc candidate Dee Twiddy and PhD candidate Elisa Pal travelled to the Mpumalanga area during the week of 9 February.

On 3 September, Dr Gerda Fourie, research leader of the Macadamia Protection Programme (MPP) and Prof. Zander Myburg, research leader of the Forest Molecular Genetics (FMG) Programme participated in a live webinar.

Elisa Pal, a PhD candidate in FABI’s Macadamia Protection Programme explains how she cares for her colony of stink bugs during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Professor Jeremy Allison (Extraordinary Professor in FABI at UP) joined Luki-Marie Scheepers, Josephine Queffelec, Elisa Pal and Quentin Guignard on a field trip to Underberg, near the Drakensberg from 2-4 March.

FABI has officially launched an Applied Chemical Ecology satellite laboratory and research programme in co-operation with Natural Resources Canada. The group’s research interests lie at the interface of behavioral chemical ecology and pest management.

Macadamia Protection Programme research group leader, Dr Gerda Fourie, PhD candidate Angel Maduke and MSc student Ashleigh Smith visited research collaborators Prof. Andre Drenth and Prof. Femi Akinsanmi from the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) at the University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia, from 15-29 February.

FABI PhD candidate Quentin Guignard bagged a R30,000 cash prize paid towards attending an international conference of his choice after winning a writing competition held in conjunction with the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology (CTHB) and The Conversation Africa.

The French-South African Science and Innovation Days was held in the CSIR from 2-3 December.

PhD candidate Quentin Guignard presented a special seminar on the visual system of the European woodwasp, Sirex noctilio, at FABI on 29 July.

Disney’s Magic Kingdom welcomed FABIans for this year’s annual meeting of the Society for the Presentation of Outrageous Findings (SPOOF). The FABI Social Club worked tirelessly to transform Tuks Monate into a magical wonderland filled with fantastically dressed inhabitants.

FABI recently hosted a meeting for French researchers in South Africa.

The French Embassy organised a meeting of French academics working in South Africa on 8 February. This meeting aimed to connect French researchers from various fields and promote the expertise and innovation between the two countries.