Entomologist with a passion for pests
WHEN Dr Nomakholwa Stokwe matriculated, she had no idea that insects or nematodes could be a field of study, let alone a career choice.
However, this all changed when she started her BSc degree at Fort Hare University, and insects got under her skin and drove her passion for further study.
These days, the 32-year-old lecturer at Stellenbosch University researches natural ways to control insect pests such as woolly apple aphids and mealybugs that give fruit producers headaches.
Earlier this year, she became one of 22 young researchers from across Africa who are part of the 2017 intake of the African Academy of Science Affiliates.
The programme aims to further the professional growth of young and early-to-mid career professionals and help them to develop into research leaders until 2021.
She has been finding her feet as a lecturer after she was appointed to the staff of Stellenbosch University’s department of conservation ecology and entomology in 2016.
As a member of the department’s integrated pest-management research team, she now finds herself among many of her postgraduate lecturers who had helped develop her into an entomologist, with a keen interest in nematology (the study of soil-living roundworms).
Previously, she worked as a researcher for the Agricultural Research Council at Infruitec Nietvoorbij in Stellenbosch. There Stokwe was, among others, responsible for managing projects related to integrated pest-management research.
During this time, she also completed her PhD in entomology.
She studied whether nematodes and fungi can parasitise on woolly apple aphids (Eriosoma lanigerum) and help to control this pest in South Africa. These 2mm insects originated in North America. “They are also called American blight or plant louse of apple,” said Stokwe.
“These insects are now found worldwide in all apple-producing countries, and have been in South Africa since at least the late 1890s.”
She said that the insects pose a major threat to the country’s apple production sector. – Engela Duvenage