More than 300 growers from South Africa meet TROPICSAFE

  • Due to the initiative from two TROPICSAFE partners in the country, University of Pretoria and Vinpro, the project was presented to different end-users and stakeholders

Gerhard Pietersen from the University of Pretoria, has presented TROPICSAFE at the Information days organized by Vinpro/Winetech, the Wine Industry Network of Expertise and Technology of South Africa. The project was explained on different occasions during a roadshow in five locations around the country: Stellenbosch, Vredendal, Robertson, Rawsonville and Paarl. The events were attended by 322 people from the wine sector including grapevine growers, winemakers, viticulturists and estate owners.

The presentation made by Prof. Pietersen included an overview of the project, as well as of the activity carried out by the South African partners (University of Pretoria, Stellenbosch University, Patho Solutions and Vinpro) regarding two of the diseases studied in TROPICSAFE: grapevine yellows and huanglongbing in citrus. The general epidemiology of each disease was described along with their importance and relevance to South Africa agriculture. A request was made to growers to support this study providing samples and the permission to sample on sites of interest.