After many hours in the field, a bad sunburn on both forearms, and instrumental assistance from POF students, Dave and Connor – we have a field of tomatoes! It was a wonderful day of hard work, new discoveries and inquisitive students. A special thank you goes out to Jared in POF who is very excited to participate more in the trial and almost singlehandedly took most of of the root and shoot data. Another big thank you goes to Wade and the students who helped plant whose names I didn’t get. Dave and Connor were extremely supportive and I am so grateful for their leadership on the farm and yesterday during planting. I have not done anything with the data or photos of root systems as priority is composing my final paper on late blight and tomato resistance. Extra plants were kept in case anything doesn’t take, and trellising will happen next week. There were a lot of questions about layout and field design. I thought we had someone working on a sign for the field, but I can work on something to put out there by next week and get some good pictures.

Best,

Patrick