Manager : CFB
Jacolene’s started her career in 1995 at the ARC-Institute for Tropical and Subtropical crops in Nelspruit as a research technician and promoted to a Junior researcher in 2001. She was involved in field as well as well as glasshouse research trails with citrus diseases such as determining the effects of various virus, viroid and bacterial diseases on different citrus cultivars as well as cross protection isolates. During 2000, her BSc Honours research project focused on strain segregation of Citrus tristeza virus in different grapefruit hosts. She was part of the Citrus improvement programme (CIP) and responsible for shoot tip grafting and maintaining virus free sources as well as the CIP Access database. At the ARC-PPRI her technical skills included diagnosis of viral pathogens on different crops with PCR and ELISA. In 2004-2005 she completed her MSC on Banana streak badnavirus (BSV) in South Africa focusing on the incidence, transmission and the development of an antibody based detection system for BSV. She has experience in the production and management of potato tissue culture and more than six years’ experience on the production of banana plants from tissue culture under ISO 9001:2008 standards. For three years she managed a plant pathology business (QMS) serving the farming industry in the Limpopo area providing pack house hygiene tests, nematode counts, water tests, tests for soil pathogens and Citrus black spot (CBS) monitoring. She also worked for ZZ2 as an agronomist for avocado production for a year. In 2017 she joined the team at the Citrus Foundation block as foundation block manager where she is responsible for managing the worker team to produce horticultural superior, true to type, disease free budwood and rootstock seed to the citrus industry.
QUALIFICATIONS
MSc Microbiology (Virology)
