From the Cederberg to the Cosmos: Rooibos Goes to Space
Afternoon Drive with John Maytham · 17 July 2026 · 5m
Speaker 1: Emojis, and now we are talking about Roubos seeds in space. Darby de Villiers joins Speaker 1: us now director of the SA Royboss COUNCILA Derby. Speaker 2: Hi, Good evening, John, and good evening to the listeners. Speaker 1: What on earth are Royboss seeds doing circling the globe? Speaker 2: So you may well ask John. We had an opportunity to hit a ride along Speaker 2: with some other experiments going up to the International Space Station, so we thought we'd Speaker 2: give it a go. It's nothing too scientific at this point. We are we don't Speaker 2: have a hypothesis of what they might do up there, but anyway, when they come Speaker 2: back, they will be cultivated and we'll see if possibly micro gravity has affected the Speaker 2: morphology of the plants, and if there's something interesting, we'll explore a bit deeper. Speaker 1: So it's not as if there is a long thought out experiment. It's just we've Speaker 1: got the op between little let's pop them there and when they come back, let's Speaker 1: see how much change they are. And you know, what do you when when they Speaker 1: come back, what kind of scientific interrogation are you going to subject them to? Shine Speaker 1: a bright spotlight on them and say tell us how you've changed? Speaker 2: John quite simply when they come back, they'll be distributed to eight partner schools, amongst Speaker 2: other places, and that's where we hope to get real value out of the initiative, Speaker 2: is as being an inspiration to young learners in the field of science, technology, engineering Speaker 2: and mathematics. And those schools are mostly in the Royals growing area…
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