The team, under the leadership of Dr Philip Botha, consisted of Janke van der Colf, Pieter Swanepoel, Dalena Lombard, Brian Zulu, Ilze Fourie and Malissa Murphy, who delivered four platform and five poster presentations at the congress. These presentations included data on soil health and management, plant species/cultivar evaluation, irrigation management and pasture management practices.
The excellence of pasture-based research on the Outeniqua Research Farm was acknowledged by the GSSA when five of the six scientific awards at the congress went to four researchers based at Outeniqua Research Farm.
Dr Philip Botha received the Prestige Award for lifetime achievement as a scientist and his contribution to the field of pasture science.
Pieter Swanepoel received the Best Platform Presentation Award for his paper titled Is soil organic carbon the most important soil quality indicator for planted pasture?
Ilze Fourie (MSc student) received the Best Presentation by a Young Scientist Award for the paper titled Production potential of Lucerne oversown into kikuyu.
Janke van der Colf, for the second year in a row, won both the Best Poster presented at the congress as well as the Norman Rethman Planted Pasture Award for the best platform presentation in pasture science titled Effect of planting methods on the production potential of perennial grass/clover mixtures planted into kikuyu.
According to Annelene Swanepoel, the scientific manager of the Directorate Plant Sciences of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture, this research team is part of one of the flagship research programmes of the department and forms the back bone of pasture research for dairy production, not only in this province, but also in the country. This team is worthy of these accolades when one considers their huge list of research outputs and their utmost dedication to service delivery in their field.
From left: Dr Philip Botha (specialist scientist), Ilze Fourie (MSc student), Annelene Swanepoel (scientific manager), Janke van der Colf (scientist) and Pieter Swanepoel (scientist).
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