Spanning the Globe

Virginia Cooperative Extension in South Africa

Monday, March 19, 2007

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig…

Well, the trip home from South Africa was just as exciting as the initial trip over. We left Bloemfontein at 1pm on Friday, March 16th. We made it to Johannesburg without incident and navigated through the airport with enough time between flights to pick up some last minute souvenirs. As the time neared for us to board our flight back to the US, we noticed a line forming at what appeared to be our gate. Despite the fact that the board over the gate indicated the plane would be going to Kuala Lumpur, we decided to take our chances and get in line. Good thing we did- it was the line for our flight.

Once we nestled into our seats for the long journey home, we headed down the runway for what we thought was our last glimpse of South Africa. Wrong. Our plane had a flat tire and we had to turn around and return to the terminal. After an hour of repairs and waiting for another place in the runway line, we finally took off and started our journey.

Around 3am Africa-time, we stopped in Dakar, Senegal for fuel. Everyone was a little groggy at that point, but all 300 passengers aboard the plane were woken up by the Senegal Security Taskforce which boarded the plane and studied all of the empty seats (Why? We don’t know.). Following the safety inspection, we sat in Senegal for another forty minutes while repairs were made to our plane’s toilet system. After a total of 3 hours in Senegal, we were finally on our way to DC.

We landed at Dulles at 7:05 EST on Saturday, March 17th. It took about an hour and a half to get through customs and baggage claim (David almost didn’t make it- apparently his boots seemed questionable) before we were finally able to see our families waiting for us on the other side of the security check-point. After 24 hours of travel, we were home.

Having had a few days to reflect, I must admit that I have nothing but positive things to say about our trip. Everything was planned extremely well (thanks Mary Ann!) and I feel very fortunate to have been able to see so many different aspects of life in South Africa in such a short amount of time. We were welcomed into homes, fields, businesses, and universities across the country as if we were life-long friends - Southern Hospitality holds true in South Africa, too.

As David said, we owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people. Thank you all for affording us the amazing opportunity. We enjoyed every minute of it and look forward to sharing all of our pictures and stories with you in the coming months. If you are interested in having any of us make a presentation in your area, please contact us—we’ll be happy to oblige.

Totsiens!

Saturday, March 17, 2007

A Great Experience

I wanted to make some comments about the trip and what the experience has meant to me.  I have learned a lot about the agriculture here as well as the customs and history of South Africa.  I would suggest strongly to anyone visiting this country, that they spend some time reading about its history.

Agriculture means so much to this country.  The people need it to survive and many of its major products go directly into the human food chain.  Maize is the largest crop by far and about 60% of that maize is white maize and is used for human consumption.  The second largest crop is sunflowers and all the oil processed from sunflowers goes into the human food chain.  I am amazed at the natural resources they have here and am fascinated by the beauty.  They mine gold, diamonds and salt.  They also have rock quarries and mine their own limestone. They have a rather large amount of hectares in sugarcane, vineyards and they even brew many fine beers.  All this from a country about twice the size of Texas.  I also appreciate their interest and innovation with new crops, such as, kenaf, amaranth, prickly pear, hoodia, and others.

This trip has given me a greater understanding of the difficulties SA farmers face with their crops;  Soybean rust, maize streak virus, seedling insects and diseases, drought, and lack of irrigation.  Larger farms have the capacity to cope with these problems with equipment and crop protection, but smaller farmers cannot afford the inputs it takes to produce a crop; a crop just to feed themselves and their families.

My experience here for the past 2 weeks has been one that I will not soon forget.  It has been an opportunity that I am truly thankful for.  There have been many individuals that have been responsible for the trip. On behalf of all of us on the trip, I would like to thank the authors of the USDA International Science Education Grant who made the trip possible and also thanks to our South African and Virginia Tech colleagues with whom we interacted.  We appreciate the work of the Virginia Tech Extension Communications personnel who developed the “blog” site so we could relay our experiences to others as they followed our trek.  We appreciate the support from the clientele and from local government in each of our localities.  We wish to thank the administration of the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Virginia Cooperative Extension for their support of the trip.

Lastly, thanks to each of you who took the time to follow us on the blog.  We hope it has been entertaining.  That is all.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Totsiens Giraffes!

On Wednesday we hit the road again to the Vaalharts area where the ARC Grain Crops Institute has a farm in the irrigated area between the Vaal and Orange Rivers. Brad Flett, our maize pathologist host, guided us to his maize field plots where we observed and learned more about the devastating Maize Streak Virus. Depending on the time of infection, symptoms range from mild leaf streaking to overall mottling, severe stunting, and infertility. In Brad’s field trials, which were designed to monitor the pattern and time course of disease spread within the field, we were able to observe the range of symptoms even though distribution of the disease was limited this year due to the drought. Apparently activity of the leafhopper vector was reduced this year due to high heat. Brad explained that although South African cultivars with resistance to MSV have been developed, there is generally a 15% yield drag with resistant cultivars; thus, most commercial farmers find that use of a seed-treatment insecticide is more economical than purchasing resistant cultivars. Subsistence farmers generally do not use either insecticide treatment or resistant cultivars and, in many years, suffer total yield loss due to this disease. These farmers have to rely on using a late planting date to avoid catastrophic losses.

We also discussed the likelihood of this disease entering the United States. Brad described some of his own studies, which have shown zero percent seed-transmission of the disease. Thus, introduction through seed is unlikely; however, movement of the leafhopper vector is still a possibility.

After viewing irrigation systems used in this area and stopping to pick up some boerwors  and sosaties for a braai, we drove the 80 km to the Sandveld Game Reserve to spend the night. Those of us with a heartier constitution arose at 6:30 AM to go for a game drive and bird watching with Brad. David reluctantly bid farewell to the giraffes and South Africa…

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

No one ate squidheads…

After our breakfast and private fiddle serenade at The Nest, we began our 6-hour trek to Potchefstroom “not in any particular hurry.” After realizing that no one had any local currency, we decided to make a stop at a little bank in Bethlehem. South African efficiency was at its peak- it only took Dr. Stromberg forty minutes to exchange $200 USD. After securing enough funds to continue our trip, we hit the road again, still in “no particular hurry.” Six hours later we arrived in Potchefstroom having never stopped to eat lunch or make use of any comfort facilities.

After checking in to the Willows Garden Hotel (our highest rated accommodations yet), we met with Dr. Brad Flett, summer grains plant pathologist at the ARC here in Potchefstroom. He led us to his home where he and his family welcomed us with another sumptuous South African braai. We dined on more boerwors (“farmers’ sausage”), lamb chops, beef kabobs, pickled beets, vegetable salad, and a corn meal casserole called something that sounded like “pop-tart” (we’ll get the recipe) that was actually made of corn meal and tasted like scalloped potatoes. After stuffing ourselves again, we headed back to the Willows for a good night’s sleep.

Tuesday morning Brad met us at the hotel again and took us to the ARC where he works. This branch of the ARC is called the Summer Grains Institute. Alex McDonald, section leader for Crop Protection, gave us an overview of the organization of the institute. We also met with Driekie Fourie, nematologist; Tom Drinkwater, entomologist; Maryka Craven, soybean and maize pathologist; Charlotte Mienie, molecular biologist; and Godfree Chigedza the sunflower breeder. Sunflowers are the primary edible oil crop in South Africa and the second-largest in planted hectares. We really enjoyed getting to tour the impressive facilities provided at this location.

Brad took us to lunch at a local seafood restaurant called the “Fishmonger” – located just off the campus of the local university. Even though the menu offered many exotic treats, such as squidheads, three of us chose to eat chicken. The others had hake (a local whitefish) and chips.

In the evening, we finished up the last two modules of First Detector Training.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

A Day of Rest…

Well, not exactly.  Like rural America did 30 years ago, South Africa rolls up the carpet mid-afternoon on Saturday and re-opens Monday morning.  Sunday here is a day of rest, and our group needed a break from what amounts to "information overload."  David, Robyn, and Eric took advantage of this opportunity to sit back and enjoy the beautiful Drakensberg Mountain scenery from the comfort of the Nest Hotel.

Big adventurers that we are, Mary Ann and I used our time to go for a hike.  We took a well-worn, 7-mile trail about 2,300 feet further up into the Drakensberg.  Luckily, we met a very nice couple from Johannesburg who guided us along the path and told us much about the geography, flora, and fauna along the way.  We saw three baboons, a dung beetle, and jagged mountain scenery reminiscent of the Northern Rockies.  Someone told us the Drakensberg usually sees an afternoon thunderstorm each day.  We found out the hard way, about halfway through our 6-hour hike and 3 miles or more from our van!  Thankfully, we had come prepared - our enjoyable hike was saved by raincoats and waterproof boots.

 

Hiking amongst such beauty allowed me some quiet time to think about the busy week we have spent here in South Africa.  Reflecting back on our experiences, I realize how much I have learned.  A great deal relates to our plant pathology mission, but even more deals with the world in general.  Not only have I learned how to recognize soybean rust, maize streak virus, and phaeosphaeria, I am learning how much I didn’t know about life beyond the USA.  For the first time, I have seen REAL poverty.  For the first time, I am beginning to understand agriculture on a global level, and how CBOT corn prices might not only affect a Virginia farmer, but also how those same prices may affect economically-challenged people living in developing countries.  We live in a large and complex world, and it is always good to gain perspective on how it works.  For me, this was a Sunday well spent…

Saturday, March 10, 2007

A glimpse of alternative cropping in South Africa

I spent Friday night recovering from my illness by lounging in the room at the Bridge Hotel. The start of the evening was very peaceful, but the tiny town of Winterton (especially our hotel’s pub) is apparently a hot spot for night life in this part of South Africa. Around 10 pm the disco beat started and it didn’t let up until the wee hours of morning…

Saturday morning we traveled 5 km to the farm of Dale and Cheri van Aardweg. Dale is a very progressive South African farmer – raising maize, soya, sorghum, kenaf, and mint (for essential oils). He plants all of his crops using no-till techniques, which is very rare in South Africa. We spent part of the morning looking at his fields and discussing the similarities between grain production in South Africa and the USA. Later, we visited the newly-built kenaf processing facility where his kenaf, and that of approximately 30 other farmers, is being processed for use in the fiber industry. Automotive companies are looking at using the kenaf fibers to build light-weight panels for new vehicles. While the facility is up and running, they are still working out some kinks in the system. One of the problems they are facing is freeing the fibers from the core material is a timely manner (through a process called “retting”). We discussed several possible solutions to this problem that will be tested in the upcoming months as this year’s harvest begins. The processing facility is one of two in the entire world. Surprisingly, the other is located in Snow Hill, NC.

Kenaf is a crop that thrives in dry conditions – maybe we should be looking at this as a new crop for Southside, Virginia…

In the afternoon we headed to The Nest Hotel which sits at the foot of the Drakensburg. There we stayed in rondavels and enjoyed afternoon teas, interesting South African cuisine, and more disco music.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Visit to Pannar Seed

Friday morning we drove the perilous sugar cane truck route from Hilton to Greytown, home of Pannar Seed, a South African company that has become an international company in recent years. We suffered our first casualty of the trip: after lying in the back seat all the way to Greytown, Robyn finally threw up upon arrival at Pannar and spent the rest of the day in the Pannar medical clinic, recovering from what appeared to be food poisoning.

Unfortunately, she missed excellent presentations by some of the Pannar plant pathologists, agronomists and breeders in the morning and field visits in the afternoon. Luckily, she felt well enough to travel to our next stop in the evening.

In the morning, we received an overview of the company by Peet van der Walt, followed by presentations by maize breeder, Rikus Kloppers, agronomist, Eve du Preez, soybean breeder, Antony Jarvie and, of course, a delightful tea break, which included a choice of petit-fours and muffins. From Rikus Kloppers, we learned about the many diseases of maize that are a problem in this country, including Phaeosphaeria leaf spot, which seems to be a problem only in fields that have been sprayed with fungicides to control other diseases. We also learned more about maize streak virus, a leafhopper-transmitted viral disease that is severely yield-limiting, and about the new GM-maize streak resistant variety developed at Pannar that shows promise for controlling this severely yield-limiting disease.

Eve du Preez gave us a detailed review of results from field trials she had done on fungicide efficacy, rate of application, persistence, and timing of applications for control of soybean rust. Antony Jarvie talked about his work to define and identify rust-tolerance in soybean cultivars, and explained that a combination of tolerance and fungicide applications will likely be the most effective means of managing this disease for the foreseeable future.

A typical Afrikaner-style lunch that included mutton and pumpkin fritters was catered in the company canteen before we drove out to the field plots on the afternoon. In the field we saw soybean sentinel plots severely defoliated by Asian soybean rust and gained more expertise in recognizing symptoms of this disease. We also visited maize breeding plots with plants exhibiting varying levels of maize streak virus. Employees were in the process of pollinating plants while we were in the field, so we also got a chance to see maize breeding in action. At the end of the day we said farewell to our friendly, informative hosts and headed to our next stop: a quaint hotel with a thatched roof in Winterton.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

A Different Side of the Trip

Today is Thursday, March 8th and we are in Hilton. We have been traveling a lot the past 2 days and have seen much beautiful scenery. It reminds me of the mid-west and far west of the US. Sometimes when you look out the window, you would even think you were traveling down I-81 in Virginia. We have gone as far east as we will go on this trip. Beautiful mountains and a lot of grasses. Mixed in with all of this, are fields of maize, soybeans, sunflowers, kenaf. We have seen more animal agriculture in the past few days also. This morning, briefly, we visited the community gardens of the Mpophomeni village just outside of Hilton.

 

The community garden is totally organic and makes its own compost for fertilizer and uses lots of mulch to control weeds. It also uses ample amounts of animal manures. The people in the village are very low income to no income at all. The garden is used to supply food to certain families there. The families must come to the community garden in order to participate. The overseer of the garden also supervises an individual’s garden at their home. Interesting that these families, many without a father, live on a 25ftX40ft section of property(if that big) and also raise vegetables year round to support their families. This village is just one of so many here in SA that are stuggling just to survive. Things are improving for them though. We visited the cemetery at the back of the village.

 

It is rather large. Over 400-500 new grave sites since early 2006. Most die of Aids. Through education of the youth and assistance of many mission groups,and others, situations are improving for them. Cattle, goats and chickens roam around as they please moving from one house to another to find a grazing spot. This scene is much different from the ones we have experiend this far, but very much worth seeing. This afternoon we visited Pat Caldwell, Professor of Pathology, University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermartizburg. She hosted a picnic under the trees at the entrance to campus for us. She later showed us around campus. We heard about the research going on att he University in the glasshouses. Sclerotina in sunflowers, and soybean and some of the bio-controls using silicon in a spray application. This application is being used experimentally for Asian Soybean Rust. We also heard from one PHD student and his work with Fusarium of Bananas. He was hoping to finish his work before he returned to Ethiopia. Many thanks to Pat and her colleagues for the hospitality.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Soybean Rust Sighting

After visiting the Small Grains Institute at Bethlehem on Tuesday, we drove through the beautiful Golden Gate Highlands Park to Harrismith to spend the night. On the drive we saw black wildebeest, blesbok, and the rare gray crowned cranes. Today we drove from our "luxury hotel" in Harrismith to the ARC’s Cedara Research Center in Hilton, South Africa, and achieved one of the main goals of our trip: to see Asian soybean rust. On the way to Cedara we enjoyed the spectacular scenery of the Drakensberg Escarpment.

Neal McLaren, a UFS plant pathologist, accompanied us and was nice enough to stop at several scenic spots along the way. David’s wife had sent along a VT hat to give to a South African child and we found the perfect little recipient at one of the stops. At Cedara, pathologist Neil van Riij took us out to the field plots and showed us diseases of soybeans, maize, and sorghum. In spite of the prolonged drought in this area (17 mm of rain in a month that normally has a rainfall of 120 mm), we did see Asian soybean rust, caused by the fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi, on some of the soybeans and we all learned to recognize the disease.

In maize we saw gray leaf spot, northern leaf blight, common rust, and Phaeosphaeria leaf spot (a disease for which the causal agent has not yet been conclusively determined). We also saw northern leaf blight in sorghum. In general, disease pressure was low due to the drought, but we were able to bring samples back to the lab to view symptoms and causal fungi with the microscope.

We managed to upload our blog posting at Cedara, albeit with a rather slow connection, which prevented us from uploading some of our photos. (This blog alone has taken over two hours to post!) We ended the day dusty and tired but in good spirits at the "Mist and Drizzle" restaurant (weather for which this area is noted) where we dined with pathologists, Neal McLaren, Neil van Riij, and Pat Caldwell, along with two of Neal’s graduate students.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Our day at the Agriculture Research Council Small Grains Institute, (ARC, SMI), Bethlehem, SA

The day began by leaving Bloemfontein at 8AM for the airport to secure a second van as our original rental had a problem with the front passenger door wanting to fall off the car.  We continued on our way in a Mercedes van despite considerable road work delays as the Republic of South Africa is preparing its roads for hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

We finally arrived at the Institute to be greeted by the staff and a sign warning about meerkat crossing.

We were treated to a lunch and a tour of the facilities.  We were introduced to the facility by Dr. Vicki Tolmay, agronomist.  From there we visited the laboratory of Dr. Goddy Prinsloo, entomologist, to learn about work on the chemical ecological suppression of the Russian wheat aphid, next we learned of work conducted by Dr. Justin Hatting on the biological control of insects using fungi, virus, and nematodes.  We had the opportunity to visit plant pathologist, Ms. Cathy de Villiers on here work with fusarium head blight resistance evaluations and measures to restrict the movement of Karnal bunt in South Africa.

We greatly appreciate the hospitality and enthusiasm to the staff of the Institute.  This looks like a good place for Erik Stromberg to arrange a sabbatical leave.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Today we learned!

I haven’t taken so many notes in one day since graduate school!  The plant sciences and agronomy faculty from the University of the Free State explained about South African cropping systems and the research employed to maintain production viability.

 

South Africa has many new specialty crops including amaranth, kenaf, hoodia, prickly pear catus, and agave.  Researchers here use an approach called Holistic Crop Health Management which is less reductionist and more interdisciplinary than crop management research has been in the past.  They look at everything from microclimate to biodiversity when tackling insects, diseases, and other plant health problems.  This approach is very proactive in that plant health is promoted and need for pesticides tends to be greatly reduced.  In agronomic crop production, pesticides are very costly; UFS plant pathologists focus their work on plant breeding for genetic disease resistance, thereby decreasing costs to farmers.  They are currently looking at soybean varieties that show delayed onset of soybean rust symptoms following infection as a way to manage this devastating disease. 

In the afternoon, we visited a local farm that grew maize (corn), sunflowers, potatoes, and wheat.  Here, we saw maize streak virus for the first time.  This is another potentially devastating disease, but only a few plants were found to be infected.  In the evening, faculty of the UFS Plant Science Department treated us all to a Braai (barbecue).

We all enjoyed the excellent food and new friends we have made.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Sunday March 4

(Text by David Moore) On Sunday, March 4th, it rained for most of the day. South Africa was in the middle of a severe drought. This was the first appreciable rainfall that the area has had in months. This rain has brought millions of Rands profit. I guess we brought the rain. In the afternoon, we visited Emoya Estates, a restaurant inside a game farm. We saw giraffes, hartebeest, gemsbok, and many kinds of birds while we ate lunch. We had traditional South African cuisine with Rooibos tea (a non caffeinated red bush tea) Later, en route to a small farm we even experienced elephants. We are sure to see more on the remainder of our trip. Later in the day, we met with Dolf Swanepoel, Projects Director for ADRA-South Africa, a development and relief agency, and visited the demonstration gardens for a program called NewStart Eco Gardens.

 

The farm is located about 15 miles outside Bloemfontein. The gardens are for those practicing organic small farm production for subsistence agriculture. The process allows low-income individuals in South Africa to produce vegetables on limited acreage without expensive irrigation. The process includes barrel collection of water to use in the drip irrigation process. This process can be used on most any kind of soil and has been successful here on soils with limited top soil depth with high clay, high silt content. We are enjoying the experience and our driving abilities are improving. Driving in the dark on the left side of the road is not easy.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Our first day

Well, here we are! We’ve made it to Bloemfontein. The flights were quite the adventure - the first flight, from DC to Johannesburg was dreadfully long and our first attempt at landing was aborted due to wind sheers. The second flight, from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein, was fine - it was just very confusing to get through the airport. Luckily, our travel package included a guide who met us when we got off the first plane and took us all the way through to the second plane. I’m not sure we would have made it without her.

We arrived at the guesthouse at about 9pm last night. Our accommodations are wonderful- very home-like. Daleen, the woman who runs the guesthouse, even has three dogs (one is a dachshund!) that wander about the premises. We were tired enough from the flights that we were all about to get to bed around midnight. That left us in good shape to get up around 7:30 this morning. We had a huge breakfast at the guesthouse (the juices here are delicious!), then went to an African Art festival at a nearby park. This afternoon, we went to the local mall to pick up a few things as well as meet up with Dr. Dixie Watts Reaves, from VT Dept of Agricultural and Applied Economics, and the 15 exchange students who are here from Blacksburg. We had a late afternoon meal at a steakhouse and now we’re on campus in Dixie’s office making this post.

We plan on leaving here soon and heading to the grocery store to pick up something light for supper.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

At the airport…

We all met at Dulles Internation Airport today at 3pm and used our waiting time productively.  As part of this trip, the three extension agents will receive the National Plant Diagnostic Network’s First Detector Training for exotic plant pests.  Mary Ann provided the first of three learning modules required for this program while waiting to board.  We will receive the other two modules while in South Africa. 

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Leaving the USA

We leave on the 15+ hour flight to South Africa tomorrow. We will fly to Johannesburg from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., refueling in Senegal on the way. Then on to Bloemfontein, where we will meet with plant pathologists in the Plant Sciences Department at University of the Free State on Monday. We hope to have a chance to post a blog from Bloemfontein before traveling on to the Agricultural Research Council’s Small Grains Institute in Bethlehem on Tuesday.