Soybean - Day One

The day was here. The soybean review day for Canada. The day when we sit as a team and discuss every product we tested. Line by line. Since we essentially had two pipelines with our new trait, there are a lot of lines. Personally I walked around one thousand plots for this purpose. I should have something constructive to share for everything. There is a buttload of preparation that goes into it. The data has to be collected all year and entered into our database. Then it is all quality checked with statistical analysis to make sure it is valid and representative. All the data is then pulled and loaded into tools and checked for accuracy again and put into easy to digest visualizations. Then the discussion happens. The group has to determine if the product is commercially viable, identify the strengths and weaknesses and characterize it. It’s a long process. Some products are done in minutes and some take more discussion and analysis. I’m not sure farmers are aware of the rigour behind the products they buy. Ah well, it’s our job to try and get only the elite material into their hands. So that was the day. I ran out at seven in the morning, after showering and dressing, to grab a McBreakfast. I am out of eggs. I stopped to grab the mail and discovered my new webcam that Amazon told me was delayed was in the mailbox. I guess Canada Post and Amazon aren’t talking. I’ll have that to setup up later when I get free time again. I was at the helm at half past seven, eating breakfast and polishing a file. The call started at eight and was done at five. We had two ten minute bio breaks and a twenty minute lunch. Like I said, lots of material to cover this year. I was lucky that I had some pasta left. I chortled it down at my desk with a Stouffer’s bistro thing. The meatball kind is my favourite. After the call I worked on catching up my email and getting some files ready for day two. The Chef made an unexpected pop-in. These have become very rare during the COVID-era. We chatted for a few minutes. There was a traffic snarl in the highway and he needed to go to the Home Depot so he took his shot. Upon his departure I boiled some Mr Noodle and pounded that back before retiring to my chambers. I worked on some overdue Musings and did some reading. It was a perfect wind down.