冬へ向けて 【Towards winter】

Scientists like us, who work with farmers and fields, have some weak points. In winter seasons, we have less things to do. For example, some roads are inaccessible anymore due to snow and soil freezing stops us to take soil samples. In November, therefore, we usually a lot of things to prepare for winter. We have to sample our soils if we are going to measure some characteristics of them. If we have some field research plans, we have to do them as soon as possible. A few weeks ago, we visited Akkeshi-town to research Bekanbeushi-river. We are indeed interested in river water quality but for this visit, we sampled soils from grasslands and wetlands. A student who came with me, swung a hammer to sample soil cores. Soil cores are good for some experiments because they maintain their original structures but it is normally so hard to hammer the cores into soils. I was impressed by a toughness of my student. Good job.

We also had a small workshop at the beginning of this month, presented many posters. It is so wonderful to be able to explain about our works to others and to receive a lot of comments and questions from them.