This week (and probably most of the upcoming weeks!) was incredibly busy.  I need to get my screenhouse assays all planted, so that there is enough time to do all my evaluations before I head back to Ohio.  This week I took down two greenhouse assays, set up three more, and inoculated another two trials (Uff da!). I also got a few things done in the lab too! Next week, we head back into the field to wrap up our variety trials.

Pics from this week!

Lab tip of the week: Don’t have a cell scraper? Just use a microscope slide. You can flame it and reuse it!

I inoculated some tomatoes with Xanthomonas and stuck them in bags to boost the humidity. Fingers crossed for good symptom development!

Flaming a nail to poke holes in plastic cups to make pots for an assay. Yep, just another typical evening in Tanzania!

A green egg, these are from local chickens and the green one came from a Zambian chicken.

The monkeys were busy playing in the yard as always.

I arrived in Tanzania late Sunday evening and got back to Morogoro on Monday.  On Tuesday, I was back in the lab. This week was a week of working in the lab with soils and in the screenhouse giving my plants some much needed TLC.

Not too many pictures from the week because I was busy running around between the lab and screenhouse.

Sometimes this is the view from the lab window

Sometimes you need to accept that your greatest accomplishment for the day is adjusting the pH correctly.

This week was the 2014 Annual American Phytopathological Society meeting.  It involved lots of posters, talks, meetings, and catching up with friends.  During the meeting, I gave a talk about my work in Tanzania and it went pretty well. If you’re interested, you can watch it here (it’s around the 1 hour mark): go.osu.edu/nYB  All in all, the meeting was productive and successful!

I head back to Tanzania tomorrow to complete the second half of my research project.

As always, pics from this week (Thanks to Monica Lewandowski for the pic from my talk and final night celebration)!

My mom made sure there were tomato diseases in the garden to make me feel at home.

Bring em’ on! Answering questions during my talk.

A representative sample of my labmates and my family!

Miller Lab at the last night celebration!

This week I had a bit of a scenery change as I traveled to Minnesota for the annual APS meeting in Minneapolis (and as a native St. Paulite, I get to stay with my family!)

Before I left Tanzania, I got a few more assays set up and a lot of other work done.

Before the APS meeting started, I gave some of my labmates a tour of the University of Minnesota campus (my alma mater).  Now that the meeting is underway, I’ve been pretty busy running between sessions and catching up with people.

And now a few pictures from the week:

Greasy, water-soaked spots are developing on the tomatoes I sprayed with Xanthomonas!

On the U of M Scholars Walk, a plaque celebrating Norman Borlaug’s Congressional Gold Medal

I was a bit torn about suggesting doing the O-H-I-O by Goldy Gopher…

But I acquiesced!

Morogoro Town lies at the base of the Uluguru Mountains.  This past weekend, I hiked with some friends up into the Uluguru Mountains to Morningside, which is an old German building.  The mountains were gorgeous and reminded me a lot of the fields I hiked through in the Andes. I loved see how the crops and vegetation changed as we gained altitude.  Here are some pics from the hike!

A view of the Uluguru Mountains that I see everyday on the way home from the lab.

Is this something in the Onagraceae family?

Impatiens!

Ng’ombe = cow

Kuku = chickens

Can’t go on a hike without finding diseases! Crown gall (Agrobacterium tumefaciens)

A rust fungus on Oxalis

Week 13 marks the halfway point of my research trip.  Things have gone by very quickly!

I kept busy this week taking down and setting up more screenhouse assays, setting up some quick and dirty pathogenicity assays, doing some soil work in the lab, and preparing for my trip next week.

No pictures this week, but here’s a list of 10 things I’ve enjoyed during the first half of my trip (in no particular order).

1. Having adventures everyday: whether it be some strange insect in my room or figuring out how to pantomine what a basket is (because I don’t know the correct word in Kiswahili), there are always exciting things that I encounter nearly everyday

2. Experiencing a new culture/country

3. Eating Tanzanian foods

4. The farmers we work with

5. Beautiful scenery

6. Friendly people

7. Discovering plants and insects that are new to me

8. Living somewhere that there are monkeys

9. Pushing my plant pathology knowledge to the limits in the field

10. Learning about everything!