Lab Work/ Week Work
Due to my four day weekend I didn’t start my week until Tuesday which surprisingly wasn’t a lab day! Instead we were able to go out into the rice fields to get a taste of how the farmers work so hard everyday. Our day started at 6:30 in the morning with a boot fitting! Then we headed out to the patches for our day of work. We were put into assigned groups and I was partnered with a very kind older woman named Ramil. She told me that she was here for the day just for fun and that she isn’t an intern. Ramil has 7 hectares of rice farm land which she manages, and she used to work at IRRI in the social sciences department. She also worked at UP LB as a professor for the social sciences. Our group started with preparing grids for manual rice planting. I had fun with this task because all we had to do was drag a wooden fence looking at things across the mud. The rice patches are very similar to kalo patches, I didn’t feel any difference while working in them, so I had a very easy time moving through the thick mud! Next I rode on the planter machine which was a small tractor with floaters and a planter on its rear rather than a tiller. It was smooth and easy. I can see why they use it so much. We were then instructed to get into the same patch that we made our grids in to start manual planting. Just like kalo all that you do is plant the plant in the intersection of the lines. Working on the farm reminded me of home and when I go out to the lo’i with my dad. Next was a hydro-tiller which was like a push lawn mower but in the water tilling the mud. Then we got to use a carabao (swamp water buffalo) to till a more muddy patch! She was very sweet but walked very fast (the cow). Next was another tiller, not too sure what that one did exactly but they ran super fast and I feel like I am jogging in the mud with this machine. The last machine was a hand held planter which is shown below. This one wasn’t too fun, it was heavy and when I got it I got stuck for a second and the helper had to run over to get me unstuck (how embarrassing).
Then the second to the last station was built like a pa (or banks) for the rice to be planted on. This technique is for the experiments done on rice, they have these banks that run across the entire width of the patch and those lines are where you can plant rice. This helped because you can have more than one variety of rice or even stages of rice right next to each other. One of the instructors also told us about the golden apple snail! He said the late president’s wife visited a farming region in Indonesia and saw that they had these snails being cultivated and eating on a daily basis. The snails were grown in wet environments similar to rice patties and they are a great source of protein. So she decided to introduce them to the Philippines so that when farmers are out all day they can have a snack on the farm! So many apple snails are now found on rice patties without needing to be introduced. (In Hawaii they are quite invasive, and I forgot to ask the farmers here if they are also annoying and invasive). Lastly we got to watch some drones fly super high in the air which help farmers scatter fertilizer as well as spray pesticides. Once the day was over I was tired and ready for a nice shower and my bed. The next day I was back in the lab after my long weekend and the start was very slow as we weren’t doing much this day. On Wednesday the only activity in the lab was to prepare freezer stock for the endophyte starins I had already revived. Instead of storing them in skim milk we stored them in NB and Glucose this time. The procedure was simple, all I had to do was pipette some of the culture broth I made last week into some of the freezer tubes along with some 50% glucose I also prepared a month ago. My advisor had to finish his abstract for this project by this weekend so he was a bit busy. But the next day a new group of interns came to the lab. To our microbiome team we got a new team member whose name is Dane. She is a botany student from UPLB college here at IRRI for a one month internship. We made pleasantries and got right to work with some antagonistic testing. This is where we split the plate in two and spread our endophyte culture from last week on one half of the plate (using a glass spreader) and on the other side of the plate we place a spore of the fungus. Then we wait overnight to see if the fungus has either taken over the area of the endophyte or if the endophyte strain shows a resistance or an antagonistic characteristic to the fungus. Next I had to attend our lab meeting where the new master student presented her thesis. The day ended on a slow note. Finally Friday hit and I was surprised with the announcement that we will be going out with another lab to collect some soil samples for their project. That is where we met Vincent. He is a PhD graduate conducting his post research in cable bacteria. Cable bacteria are able to conduct electricity through oxidation in the soil of rice patties. They decided to collect samples from high nitrogen patches and patches with no nitrogen to see what the cable bacteria prefer. We also collected samples from areas with more clay and sand in the soil to see if that also makes a difference. The collection of the soil is done by pushing a glass with both ends open into the soil then placing a cap at the top to suck the soil stuck in the glass out of the patch. Once out of the patch you must place a cap at the bottom of the jar to inhibit soil from escaping. Once we have the sample we head back to the truck and collect two different samples from that soil tube. One is from the top where there is oxidized soil and the other is from the bottom of the tube where there is no oxidized soil. When looking for cable bacteria in the unoxidized soil we wanted to collect roots that have an orange color to them, indicating iron in the soil and some sort of oxidation occurring. We were collecting samples the entire morning so after lunch it was back into the lab for us! Dane and I had to make more plates for the week of endophyte isolation to come. While that was in the autoclave we made sure to check on our antagonistic plates from the other day to see what the results were. We were checking to see if any of the strains showed resistance to the fungus. We did notice that only two out of the five strains showed a clearing from the fungus which meant that they are antagonistic. These two strains included In-b-590 and In-b-714. Next Vincent returned to our lab with his soil samples, he offered us a chance to learn how to prepare slides for bacteria. The procedure was simple, we had a slide with a square cut out from the middle which is where we placed our mud samples. You pack in there pretty well using a spatula, and wipe the edges using some tissue. Next you place some water on the slide over the dirt using a syringe and then put a slide cover on top of the dirt slide to keep air out and allow the bacteria to move around and live. Next we placed them in some large conical tubes and put them in a box on the counter till the next week. Vincent brought in his own microscope to show us what one of the rice roots looks like. The root looked very yellow under the microscope and had many blemishes on it. I could not see any bacteria in the rhizosphere which is what we were supposed to be looking for. And that concluded our week in the lab!
Weekend Activities!
This Saturday we took things a bit slow. The girls and I woke up somewhat early to head over to the market where vendors are selling food as well as some other goodies! Julia and I were stopped by a sampler who gave us some pesto pili nut spread to try, we did end up buying a jar each of that spread to share with our families when we return. Next we looked for some food which was not a difficult task because there were just so many vendors selling food, we decided to try some bread from a nice lady. Then one of Jessica’s Ate’s from the lab came and brought us to her university’s cultural food event. There was nothing vegetarian but the others sure did enjoy the food! (plus it smelled amazing). Next Julia and I got some coffee from one of the market vendors and sat under a tree and just talked for a while. After finishing our coffees the others met up with us and we ventured into town to find a store to buy some groceries from. We made a detour for a craft store where I bought a cute little glass jar to store my shells in. Once we finished our shopping, we all decided to head back to IRRI to cool down. Later in the day around 3 pm the Jessica’s came knocking on my door begging to come and play volleyball with them, so of course I dragged myself out of bed and went down to the field to be active. Volleyball was fun, the field (as like the rest of IRRI) has a beautiful view of the mountains and being outside is always nice. The grass was a little wet, so my feet got a bit dirty during playing. There were also some puff mushrooms peeking through the grass! Later that night we decided to go to a Korean BBQ but I was quite tired so I just stayed back for an early night’s rest. However, I did meet up with Julia after she came back for a movie night and to make out little glass jars. We both bought those little glass jars, and we both had some shells, so for a bit we sat and filled our jars with the shells we collected from El nido.
Sunday wasn’t that much different, one of our slow weekends I guess. But we did decide to head over to Calamba which is the next town over. There is a mall and movie theater there where we got to be in the AC for the rest of the day. We looked around at some of the different shops but ended up watching Mission Impossible. Nothing too exciting but we have had many busy weekends so it felt nice to just cruze a bit this weekend.
Anyways, till next time!