Jill Farrant facts for kids
Jill Farrant is a brilliant scientist from South Africa. She teaches about plants at the University of Cape Town. Jill is famous for studying special plants called resurrection plants. These amazing plants can look completely dry and dead, but they come back to life when they get water! It's like magic, but it's science!
Amazing Plant Research
Jill Farrant studies how some plants can survive for a very long time without water. She wants to understand their secret! She explains that all plants have special genes that help them handle dryness. But most plants only use these genes when they make seeds. Resurrection plants are different. They can turn on these genes in their leaves and roots whenever there's a drought.
Her main goal is to use this knowledge to help people. She hopes to create new kinds of food crops that can grow even when there isn't much rain. This is super important for places like Africa, where droughts can make it hard to grow food. Jill believes these special crops will be even more important as the climate changes and droughts become more common.
Right now, Jill is looking at a plant called Eragrostis tef. It's a type of grass. The seeds of Eragrostis tef are a healthy food in Ethiopia. This plant is related to a resurrection grass that can survive droughts. Jill thinks we can breed new drought-resistant crops from the Eragrostis family. This would be similar to how farmers have created oats, corn, and wheat over many years. She believes we can do this without needing to change the plants genetically.
Her Journey with Plants
Jill Farrant became interested in resurrection plants when she was a little girl. She saw a "dead" plant come back to life after it rained. When she was just 9 years old in 1970, she wrote in her diary, "The ded [sic] plant on the rocks was alive but Dad wouldn't believe me." This early curiosity led her to become a leading expert in plant science!
Awards and Recognition
Jill Farrant has received many important awards for her amazing work.
- In 2010, she won the €100,000 Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award for her research on resurrection plants.
- In 2012, she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards For Women in Science. This award also came with a USD $100,000 prize. It celebrates women scientists who are making a big difference in the world.
She also earned her university degrees (Undergraduate, MSc, and PhD) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. She has been recognized as a future international leader in her field. She also received the SAAB Silver Medal for Excellence in Botany in 2008. In 2010, she was honored by the Department of Science and Technology as a distinguished woman scientist. She was also the President of the South African Association of Botanists from 2009 to 2010.
See also
In Spanish: Jill Farrant para niños
