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Western Cape Department
of Agriculture
takes the Annual Combined Congress by storm
T
he annual Combined Congress of
the South African Societies for Soil,
Horticultural, Weed and Crop Sci-
ences were held in George, from
19 to 22 January this year.
A total of 17 delegates representing the
Western Cape Department of Agriculture
(WCDA) with 13 posters and eight papers,
attended the congress (
Photo 1
). This in-
cluded students from the University of Stel-
lenbosch working on their post-graduate
studies on the different long-term trials run
by the WCDA and being mentored by senior
and specialist scientists of the Department.
The theme of the congress was “Taking re-
search to the farm to ensure long-term sus-
tainability”.
Dr Johann Strauss (chairman of the local
organising committee) explained the theme
of the congress in his introduction in the
abstract booklet as follows: “The challenge
to research is relevancy. In a world where
the need for sustainable food production is
of utmost importance, we as researchers
need to take our research to the farm. It is
on-farm where our research effort is need-
ed to ensure that production is sustainable
and that it will be providing for the increas-
ing demand year-on-year. The struggle to
find sponsors for research is increasingly
difficult and the demands for practical re-
search are evident. We as researchers and
role-players in the field of agriculture need
to place ourselves at the cutting edge of this
practical research.
“On 5 December 2014 it was World Soils
Day, and it is our sincere hope that from
this congress onwards we, as agricultur-
ists, realise the importance of this resource,
the base of everything we do. Without a
living soil, most of our research will mean
nothing in the long run. In order to realise
the higher production needs on less and
less available soil, we must all work together
to save and improve our soil.”
At the gala dinner, Dr Johan Labuschagne
(
Photo 2
) and Mr Jacques Smith (
Photo 3
)
were awarded the best oral and poster pres-
entations, respectively, in conservation ag-
riculture (CA) as sponsored by Rovic Leers.
It is the third year that these two prizes
have been presented at the Combined
Congress as part of the Crop Science So-
ciety’s award portfolio. Dr Mike Ferreira
(
Photo 4
) was presented with a Fellow-
ship from the Weed Science Society for his
years of dedicated work within the field of
weed science. The research programme
Sustainable Cropping Systems, which in-
cludes the long-term crop rotation trials
and cultivar evaluation programme of the
Department, delivered seven of the 18 con-
tributions of the Department.
This included two oral presentations by
two MSc Agric students, Mr Stuart Knott
and Mr Andries le Roux. Both these stu-
dents have done their theses on the long-
term crop rotation and tillage trials. Knott
did an analysis on the financial impact of
different tillage systems within different
crop rotations on data from the Langge-
wens long-term trials of Dr Strauss and
Dr Labuschagne, while Le Roux worked on
the effect of increasing residue retention,
which is the case in CA, on the establish-
ment, re-establishment and production
of annual medic pastures of the long-term
crop rotation trial at Tygerhoek research
farm near Riviersonderend.
According to Knott, CA offers the most
holistic, sustainable agricultural practice
to date, by reducing environmental degra-
dation while concurrently enhancing farm
level profitability.
79
April 2015
RELEVANT
JOHANN STRAUSS, JOHAN LABUSCHAGNE
and
ANNELENE SWANEPOEL,
Department of Agriculture, Western Cape Government
1: Front: Dr Mike Ferreira, Gert Conradie, Heinrich van Zyl, Piet Lombard, Lisa Smorenburg, Annelene Swanepoel, Pippa Karsen, Izane Leygonie
(MSc student), Stuart Knott (MSc student) and Glen Cooper (MSc student). Back: Johan van Zyl (MSc student), Henriette van der Walt (organising
committee), Dr Johan Labuschagne, Dr Johann Strauss (chair: CSSSA and chair: Organising Committee), Jacques Smith, Dr Mike Wallace and
Andries le Roux (MSc student).
1