Please bear with me while I desperately try and catch up on blogging, and stay tuned for the next installments!
Monday
On Monday I spent the whole day working with Ximena and
Elisa on preparing, organizing, and taking samples of a large set of potato
plants in the greenhouse. The samples
would then be sent to an analysis lab in CIP where they would be tested for Potato
Virus X (PVX) and Potato Virus Y (PVY).
Ximena and I started by putting information labels on small,
clear plastic sleeves that were used to hold the sampled leaves. Each sleeve was placed in numerical order
into pots of 90 sleeves.
After we finished labeling the sleeves, with over 500
samples for each virus, we began to take samples. We started with the plants
that were supposed to be infected with PVY by grafting in an infected potato
shoot into the stem. To sample, we took
three medium sized leaves from the top canopy of the stem that had been
grafted.
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| Matching the identification number |
By the time we finished with the PVY samples, it was time
for lunch, so we took a break before coming back to do the PVX samples. The process was very similar, but the PVX was
not transmitted by grafting, so I just sampled off of any stem.
When I got home from work, I surveyed my small stash of
snacks from the last grocery store trip, and decided to try the Peruvian cookie
thing called the Turron de Doña Pepa. It was a sticky layered cookie topped
with sprinkles that, upon further research, I learned is eaten most often in
the month of October and is an anise-flavored cookie stack that is soaked in a
sugary molasses mixture. It tasted pretty good, and was incredibly sticky!
Tuesday
Tuesday morning, I started work in the Aeroponics greenhouse
taking pictures of the roots. We had to
roll up the black plastic walls and then formulate a standardized procedure for
taking the photos that will be used to analyze the length (using a scale in
centimeters posted on each section), width, and approximate volume of the
roots.
Afterwards, I had a short meeting with Dr. Khan to talk
about the research and goals of his group (they target abiotic stress in
potatoes, including drought, heat, and salinity stress) as well as of this
experiment. Overall it went fairly well,
and I enjoyed getting a nice overview of the work.
That afternoon, I worked with Flavio and Jorge to put three
irrometers in three different pots in the greenhouse experiment. The irrometers record the percentage of water
in the soil, and we will use them to judge whether or not the application of
water is sufficient in later stages of the project.
We had prepared the irrometers by soaking the ceramic tips
in distilled water for several days, and we had to then fill the inner chamber
with a special solution and use a suction pump to extract any air bubbles that
would interfere with a good measurement.
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| Jorge filling an irrometer |
That afternoon, there was the World Cup USA versus Belgium
game. I missed most of the game because
I was working, but once I got home I sat down with Daniel and Liliam to watch
the overtime. I even splurged and had my
microwave popcorn and Coke to celebrate the game. However that celebration soon turned into
disappointment as the USA lost and I drowned my sorrows in popcorn and Coke.
Wednesday
I spent all day on Wednesday helping prepare seed potatoes
for a field trial in Arequipa (a southern region in Peru where CIP has a field
station). Jorge, David, and I would select seed potatoes with the best sprouts
and put ten per bag with six bags per genotype and fifty-two genotypes, for a grand
total of over 3,000 spuds.
We went to the diffused light storage where I had picked out
seed potatoes for the greenhouse project a couple weeks prior. David located and organized all of the crates
of potatoes in numerical order, and I sat on an upside down crate and selected
potatoes.
After we had selected all the potatoes, we lined up the bags
in numerical order and then David would call out the number of the genotype
(from 1 to 52) and Jorge and I would locate and pack them in large cardboard
moving boxes. Jorge joked that it was like calling out Bingo numbers, but we
never won anything J
When I got home, I tried the Copa de los Sabores chips for
Brazil, because it was the only other flavor the store carried. They were supposed to be like a steak flavor,
that tasted more like strange roast beef.
I’m still not really sure what I think of roast beef flavored chips…
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