After spending part of my week looking over survey responses in Kiswahili, I thought about the vocabulary that I’ve learned related to my project.

This is what learning Kiswahili looks like sometimes (a lot like data entry!)

Time for some Kiswahili vocabulary about tomatoes, plants diseases, and soil!

Nyanya = tomato

Magonwa ya nyanya = tomato disease (in this case, early blight)

Shamba = field, farm

Miche = seedlings

Mkulima = farmer

Wakulimu = farmers

Mwanafunzi na walimu = student and teachers

Udongo mfinyanzi = clay soil (in the shape of a tembo)

Udongo mchanga = sandy soil

Udongo tifutifu = loam soil

Mbuzi = goat (you never know what you’ll find in the field!)

I am continuously amazed by the diversity and numbers of interesting animals that I see in Tanzania.  Sometimes you don’t have to go too far to see interesting creatures.  The following are some interesting things I have found in and around my hostel.  (For the more plant and fungi-centric people following this blog, I’m compiling posts for later on cool plants and fungi I find here!)

We’ll start out with a cute animal: vervet monkeys!

An owl that was out and about during the daytime

This is a frog that we accidentally brought back from the field. I turned it loose in the hostel courtyard.

A gecko-praying mantis showdown

Which ends with the mantis flying into your room!

A giant millipede, not too big!

Oh, but they get bigger!

And bigger still!

Something I hope I don’t encounter too often, a tailless whip scorpion

I have had quite a few people ask me what I do in a typical field day.  It really depends on which project we are working on that day. However, we began the rainy season disease survey this week, and this is some of what happens during a typical field day for the disease survey (as documented by my advisor, Dr. Sally Miller, who was in Tanzania for a visit).

O-H-I-O makes any visit an official OSU visit!

Gathering some information from farmers on tomato diseases

Checking out some newly established tomato variety trials

Midday sugarcane break

Consulting my Tanzanian advisor, Dr. Delphina Mamiro, on research

Afternoon juggling break (a heavy clay soil makes excellent juggling balls)

Testing tomatoes for different viruses

Some disease finds of the day:

Alternaria stem canker

Bacterial wilt

Root knot nematode

Back to the lab to process a few disease samples

That’s what happens in a typical field day!

I didn’t get enough plant disease pictures this week for another disease post, but I did see lots of interesting things in the tomato fields we worked in.  Here are few cool things that I saw or caught in the field.

Colorful Insects

Toads

And some baby birds

Much of this second week was spent setting up some tomato field trials.  In one village, we started nurseries to produce tomato seedlings, and in the second village, the tomato seedlings were big enough to plant in the fields.

Preparation of tomato seedlings and transplanting is a very important aspect of tomato production and involves a lot of steps.  Here’s the entire process from bed preparation to field transplanting.

First, prepare raised beds, cover with dry plant debris, and start on fire.

Let beds cool overnight, remove burned debris and smooth the surface of the bed.

Prepare furrows for tomato seeds

Add slow release fertilizer to give seedlings a boost

Get ready to seed!

Plant the seeds

Cover the beds with grass and water

Eventually you get mature tomato seedlings that are ready for transplant

Collect seedlings for transplanting

Transplant the seedlings in the field (I like to get my hands dirty, too!)

A transplanted tomato field

And that’s the entire process from seed to transplanting!

This is likely the first of several posts of plant diseases I encounter in Tanzania.  With so many different crops and environmental conditions that are very disease conducive, there are plenty of plant diseases to be found. Also, I take a lot of pictures of diseased plants, and this is a great use for them!  Here we go!

Maize rust

Speck, spot, Septoria? Wish I had my hand lens handy to look at these tomato seedlings!

Powdery mildew on a cucurbit

Some sort of leaf spot on cowpea, Cercospora perhaps?

Corn (maize) smut! Too far gone to use for huitlacoche

A disease double whammy on watermelon. It looks like a viral infection (plants were also very stunted) along with Cercospora leaf spot.

After an uneventful 24+ hours of travelling, I made it safely to Tanzania.   A lot of supplies made the trip with me, as you can see below.

Admittedly, the top three bags were mine.

I’m settling in nicely, learning more Kiswahili, and seeing many interesting plants and critters.

There are geckos outside (and sometimes inside) my room.

I’ve visited two fields sites since arriving.  The weather is beautiful and due to the rainy season, everything is lush and green.

The path to one field site

I got to see some tomato seedling nurseries and even got to try my hand at establishing a nursery for some new tomato seedlings.

Raised bed tomato seedling nursery

Clearing plants from the field for the nursery

Preparing the soil for the nursery. The farmer kept telling me in Kiswahili to mix the soil (that needed some translating for me to understand).

We wrapped up one field visit by eating some nyama choma (meat slowly roasted over charcoal). All in all, my first week in Tanzania was productive, informative, and exciting!

Nyama choma, delicious, but slight chewy!