Meeting in embassy

Visit to Irish embassy. Photo by Eisen Bernard Bernardo

Third day here in Vietnam and getting to know everyone involved in the project. Today we had a meeting in the Irish embassy between the Vietnam Ireland Bilateral Education Exchange and the embassy. This was a great opportunity to highlight what the research projects are that we are going to be conducting. Now getting ready to get under way with My field research in rural Vietnam.

First day in the field

Photo of rice field for experiment.

Have just started taking air and soil samples in Van Yen, these will be analysed to see the nutrient composition of the soil and emissions (Methane) from rice production under alternate wetting and drying & no- wetting and drying. Above you can see the plots where the samples are taken from. Positive results could help reduce the inputs from farmers and increase their profits. Benefiting both the environment and the farmers

Days in the lab

Soil tests for characteristics of the soil.

Lab work is well under way and going well. First round of soil tests are complete, just another two to go. Time is tight as we are at the mercy of the rice plants i.e when it moves into it next growth phase. when it has moved into its next growth stage it will be back out to the field again and lab work here will have to be put on hold in the meantime. Though, the next trip to the field I will bring a handful of gear from the lab to do extraction of minerals in the field, this will greatly improve the accuracy of the experiments.

Expected to be back in the field by next week. Will keep you posted!

Round 2 in the field

Second visit to the field to take soil, gas and, physiology samples is well under way. The sun is beaming down on us here, no escaping the heat in the paddy fields. The sun is helping the rice grow much faster than the expected and will allow us to harvest earlier.

Fungus has established itself on the rice (picture in media). Many of the farmers in this region are afraid of the fungicides being poisonous. I guess this will help with pollution to the environment but the loss of crop here must have implications on food security. This will be investigated further. To further complicate things, a drought is now expected.

Finished field sampling

Doing sunscreen the natural way, covered in mud

I have completed all air, gas and, soil sampling in the field now. Much information has been collected in my trips to Van Yen, and now it’s time to start compiling it together to generate results. This time round I conducted some of my chemical tests in the field (picture in media). This meant transporting all the equipment with us, on what turned out to be four buses (took the wrong bus initially). The equipment included a bag-full of glassware, scales, infield measuring tools and, chemicals. Along with our own baggage, and buses that stop as though entering a Formula 1 pit-stop, this was an interesting experience.

My work is not yet finished in the field though, I will return to harvested the rice plants to be assessed for yields. I have been told that the harvesting of the plants is tough work, and from what I have seen it is! But I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it!!!

Back to the lab

Soil texture analysis

I have arrived back to VNUA, Hanoi. No more reaching though the razor like leaves of rice into the murky understory of the paddies which seems to constantly be crawling across your feet. Well, for a week at least.

I am back in the lab again, where results from the soils and fast flowing. I am greatly anticipating obtaining all the results so I can start analyzing the data. Since it is the case of repeating the same tests as previously done the work is moving much faster. I hope to have the second round of tests done within the week, and figures to go with. This will leave one last set of tests to complete, and leaving me well on tract to having all tests and results gathered before my departure from Vietnam (1st of July)

Harvest complete

harvested field with rice baled

We have harvested the rice!! This was a great experience and really enjoyed it. This was though work doing it by hand, which is still done across much of Vietnam. We used sickles to cut the rice, arrange them into bales to be carried away for separating to seed from the plant (photo in media). This needed to be done in one day, which meant it was all systems go. This was also my last time working in the Van Yen, which is such a scenic place. And, the people were so accommodating and friendly.

I am now back in VNUA where we have begun to calculate the yield, between the various regimes. This is much anticipated results. The yield will show me whether AWD was beneficial in terms of the uptake by farmers. Keeping the AWD the same or better than the non-AWD will represent an alternative to traditional (season long flooding of the field) cultivating of rice that uses less water and produces less greenhouse gas emissions, and possibly uses phosphorous more efficiently. We now have plenty of samples to start analyzing, so it’s solid lab work till departure.

Analyzing

Now that I have completed all sampling, it will be full on lab work till then end of my stay here. This includes 8 chemical tests for all soil samples which comes to 100+ test. This number will more than likely be higher by the end, due to the fact that not all tests go as you wish, leading to test being repeated multiple times. As stated before, these chemical tests will give me an insight into what the soil characteristics are and so whether AWD is suitable to this area.

After harvesting I spent 5 days on the trot counting rice kernels and assessing what percentage of these kernels were filled with rice grains. This was very tedious work but it is all finished now, meaning, that the yield will be calculated soon. This will show whether there was an increase of decreasing in yields under AWD. An increase or even maintain the same yield will be a positive result. This would show that the implementation of AWD would not hinder yields and so, improve uptake by farmers.

Results are now flooding in, and will hopefully continue to do so till the end of the month. By the end of the month I hope to have all my results obtained, then on my return to Ireland I will be able to analysis these results. And make an assessment to whether AWD was beneficial or not, and what were the reasons in either case.

Back to base

I’ve been back in Ireland for the last two and half weeks, and have reunited myself with the library. I am also living with three of the Vietnamese students that I worked with during my stay in Hanoi. With them we are hoping to have a publishable paper generated by the end of the month.

Since I am working to have a publishable paper generated by the end of the month I have been solely focused on getting all my results in order. All my results are finished now and I am in the process of doing statistical analysis on them. So far the results show that the AWD performed best in terms of the yield obtained and the emissions produced. The lower amount of fertilizer also looks to have produced the best yields. But I am still in the process of doing the statistical analysis on them, so nothing can be said for definite yet. The results from the soil analysis now seems not to tell much of a story and may not indicate any major finding….. but this is research!

Squeaky bum time!!

My penthouse view of the college.

I’m on the last stretch of this marathon, only 10 more days to have everything finalized!! Its been a grueling past month, organizing results, fine tuning materials and methods, developing GIS maps, and of course my literature review (still ongoing)!

The statistics has definitely been a burden; continuously not getting a figure for my P value has been a reoccurring theme on SPSS for me. But I’m finally starting to get to grips with it all (well most of it). My GIS maps have been a slow progress, my GIS software QGIS doesn’t seem to do what I want it to do. Whether its corrupt data I cannot use to disappearing shapefiles. But as with the stats it’s starting to come along.

I only have till the 14th of August left in Galway, then its back home to Sligo for me. I’ll miss my view from the library where I have often stared out blankly at in hope of divine inspiration. But not to worry, I’ll be back come September to present the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into this thesis.

P.S Don’t judge the plastic bottle, I had just decided to finally get a metal bottle and within a week it was stolen in the library. At least there’s someone new out there now not using plastic bottles anymore.

Thesis finished

After four months of being immersed in AWD I have completed my thesis. I found that AWD can lower the amount of phosphorus fertilizer needed to produce better yields. This means that farmers can produced more rice with less fertilzer. lowering the inputs needed by farmers will allow them to improve their profits.

Also, using less phosphorus fertilizer leads to less polluting. P causes eutrophication of water bodies. This is the build up of algae due to more nutrients and ultimately leads to the depletion of oxygen in the water, which is detrimental to aquatic organisms. Using less P fertilizer will help curb this problem.

It has been a great experience being part of this project. I’ve been to new places, met new people and made new friendships. I hope to travel back to Vietnam at some stage, but as a holiday this time.

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to all involved that helped me complete my Thesis!! Go raibh míle!