Horticulture BTech students got a taste of academic rigour when they recently presented their research on Plant Tissue Culture to lecturers and fellow students.
Not only did they have to defend their presentation choices but also demonstrate whether they could draw on lessons learned in various classes to support particular statements.
Plant Tissue Culture (PTC) is a collection of techniques used to grow plants in a laboratory under controlled conditions on a nutrient medium.
Biotechnology lecturer Dr Lalini Reddy says PTC forms a capstone for the subject and this year she wanted her students to expand beyond a factual assignment to grapple with philosophical questions.
She also encouraged her 9 BTech students to write a letter to the presidency to try to start a conversation encouraging the South African government to take PTC more seriously as a niche industry. They had to concentrate on the conservation of biodiversity and its potential effects on the country’s GDP and employment rates.
“It’s just a start for them,” Reddy told the lecturers and students who had gathered to listen to the presentations.
STERILE ENVIRONMENT: Plants cultivated in a CPUT laboratory in a nutrient medium.
The students recently visited plant tissue culture laboratory Frontier Labs in Brackenfell, which Horticulture BTech student Amanda Mahlungulu described as useful for giving them an idea of what the PTC industry is about.
“Normally when you grow plants, we know the conventional methods. He showed us how you can use technology and that something can come of it,” said Mahlungulu.
Fellow student Ngawethu Ngaka said they have found the industry visits very useful when they have to apply to do their in service training: “It makes it easier because you understand how the different organisations work.”
While Mahlungulu is interested in the concept, she knows that PTC is not yet so popular in South Africa that it would be easy to find a job in the field.
Reddy says the opportunities do exist: “It is up to the students to make themselves known.”
She says assigning the students to write the letter to the presidency and do a presentation to their fellow students and the CPUT community about their findings is one way to do just that.
Written by Theresa Smith
