Mark Laing Email & Phone Number

Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Pietermaritzburg, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Ongoing research into:1. Non-chemical control of pests and diseases, especially postharvest2. Developing online calibration models for the affordable use of portable NIR in agriculture and biology (https://frequai.com/).3. Lecturing on the Climate Crisis, largely to high school groups.

Pietermaritzburg, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

As a Plant Breeder, I established the ACCI (www.acci.org.za) in 2001 with funding primarily from the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations. We are training at least 95 African scientists from 14 countries in their PhD's in Plant Breeding. Their studies are all on African food security crops, with the research carried out in their home countries. We have graduated 43 so far, and are on track with 38 in the system, and hope to recruit another 15.The students have done superb work and have many breakthroughs in their breeding such as halving the time to harvest of cassava (from 18 mo. to 7 mo.), developing dual virus resistance in cassava for East Africa, and developing dry beans that are fully resistant to weevils (bruchids).We have worked out a way to manage PhD throughput and 83% of the students have graduated on time. We also have a 100% retention in agriculture in Africa for the students graduated to date. My colleague, Professor Shimelis Hussein, now heads up the ACCI.

Pietermaritzburg Campus

I have been in the Plant Pathology Department my entire career, progressing from Lecturer to Senior Professor. Over the years, I have lectured most of the courses we offer, but these days, I am only giving one senior course. Most of the time I spend supervising postgraduate research and fund raising.My postgraduates come from many countries - Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, India, and even South Africa. Sometimes the projects happen in the other countries, so I have to visit the students. This is a brilliant way to get to know Africa, but it can be rough - I got dysentry on my last visit to Ethiopia !The curious thing about being a scientist that no-one tells you about beforehand is the need to travel to conferences at exotic venues all over the globe, to meet interesting and smart people and discuss issues of profound importance. An amazing perk of the job.Sometimes research takes patience - I waited 35 years to undertake research on the Bambara groundnut, called "nyimo" in Zimbabwe, an "unknown" crop of great potential. Last year I finally organized the funds and a PhD student to collect Bambara groundnut seed from all over Africa, to characterize the species morphologically and genomically, and then breed better varieties - higher yields, and drought and disease resistance, we hope.We are working on some major problems, including the biggest problems facing African Agriculture (Gressel et al .2004. Crop Protection 23: 661–689). We have a real chance to solve some of these problems: mycotoxins in cereals and oilseeds, Striga of cereals and cowpea, post-harvest pests of grains, and stalk borers in cereals, in all cases by using biocontrol agents and breeding.We are also breeding sugar and biomass crops for production of biofuel and bioplastics, an exciting opportunity to be working in this research field of the future.

Pietermaritzburg, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Retirement Village Managementhttps://www.padca.co.za/

Global

Editing specialist publications.

A Levels, Biology, Chemistry, Maths

Activities and Societies: Tennis, Hockey, Table Tennis Chess, Debating, Public Speaking, Woodwork

Phd, Plant Pathology

Education record

Education record

Education record