Dube TradePort attending the Royal Show 2014

Dube TradePort is attending the 163rd installment of the Royal Show with a groundswell of the latest Agricultural technology, by presenting Dube AgriLab to the KwaZulu-Natal farming community.   

Dube AgriLab is the only commercial plant tissue culture laboratory (or micro-propagation) facility in KwaZulu-Natal. This facility is providing local farmers with plant material that is of a high quality and guarantees farmers a superior crop. The tissue culture facility is capable of servicing both horticultural and agricultural industry plant propagation needs.

Currently the major project Dube AgriLab is working on is with the South African Sugarcane Research Institute, to propagate NovaCane® as well as developing other plant varieties within its plant breeding programme. Through these programs Dube AgriLab is not only able to propagate higher volumes of seed cane from newly released varieties, but is also able to transfer varieties from one region of the industry to another - an action which would previously have been precluded because of concerns regarding disease transmission.

The only way to achieve this is through planting parent material, which is disease-free and true-to-type. Assurance that parent material is of the highest quality at the outset provides a significant reason for its consideration. Further, through the use of NovaCane® the ability to produce larger volumes of seedcane more rapidly remains a very attractive proposition.

Tissue cultured plantlets provide sugarcane growers numerous benefits, such as the peace-of-mind of disease-free plantlets, select new high yielding cultivars, increased growth rate, with more 95% uptake by the planting material and higher yields in terms of seedcane material for the next generation. Plant material obtained from tissue-cultured plantlets, if used for commercial plantation, ensures an increase in sugarcane yield.

In addition to this, “we are undertaking in-house research and development for a new technology to grow Macadamia nut trees from tissue culture. The Macadamia has become very popular and is currently the commodity showing the biggest growth, especially in KwaZulu-Natal. The laboratory is willing to consider requests from local professional growers and farmers,” says Marieke Mendes, Senior Manger, Dube AgriLab.
 
Since the beginning of this year Dube AgriLab has increased its staff compliment and critical to skills transfer it has brought in several interns from disadvantaged backgrounds and introduced them to this highly specialised field of micro-propagation, where they are gaining an invaluable amount of experience and expertise.

Erna du Plessis, Dube AgriZone Senior Manager expressed overwhelming enthusiasm when she announced Dube TradePort’s attendance at this years Royal Show, “As Dube TradePort, we are very excited to get the opportunity to share at the Royal show Dube TradePort’s contribution to the agricultural landscape of KwaZulu-Natal, through the various opportunities and programs of the Dube AgriZone and AgriLab.  We will be showing off some of the products from the Dube AgriLab and AgriZone Indigenous Nursery and answering your burning questions about the development.”

To cater to everyone, Dube TradePort’s stand will be substantive enough for the serious farmer and also accessible to the whole family, with interactive models of the Dube TradePort precinct and daily competitions where contestants can win indigenous plants grown at Dube TradePort’s nursery. Dube TradePort’s stand is in the Mercury Festival of fine living hall at the Royal Show.