Anadolu Tarımsal Araştırma Enstitüsü — Campus Tour

ATAE — Anadolu Tarımsal Araştırma Enstitüsü — Anatolian Agriculture Research Institute 

ATAE is the institute where I work. My department is SBP (Soil Borne Pathogens). I am affiliated with CIMMYT (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo — International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center)

This photo is of the Misafirhane (Guest House). My window is the fourth from the left on the bottom. It's nearly always open. Nice fresh air. Those flower beds are filled with roses (gül) and snap dragons (aslan  ağız —lion's mouth), and the smell wafts in the window. I'll stay here 90% of the time, except when I'm traveling for field work and such. Currently, I don't know if I've mentioned this, I have a roommate for Uzbekistan. He speaks broken English and even more broken Turkish, so it's difficult to communicate at times, but it's been fun. I've learned a significant amount of Russian since he's been here, that's for sure. However, he leaves on Monday for Konya.

This is the entrance to the laboratuvari. It's probably 10 yards from the entrance of Misafirhane, so very close to walk to work. 

Now, we'll follow the sign to the right to the Yemekhane — lit. food house. Obviously, the cafeteria. The food here is by far the best cafeteria food I have ever eaten. This evening, the director's daughter had her wedding reception in the cafeteria. Since I'm staying here, I was allowed to go in before and eat. Fantastic wedding food. Every day, after we're finished eating, we stroll around the campus grounds and walk off a few calories while enjoying the nice weather. 

On a side note, you'll notice on top of the Yemekhane two black rectangular panels. As you've probably guessed, these are solar panels. Behind it is a water heater. Here at the institute, all hot water is generated by the sun. Since we've been receiving and exorbitant amount of rain, the hot water is sparse. I essentially have to time my showers right to have hot water. 

This is the administrative building at the center. This is the business end of things. I have only been in here a handful of times. Once to meet the director, once to obtain a network ID, once to attend a formal meeting, and few other times for random things.

This iss one of my favorite parts of the center. That little red truck is like a grocery truck. It comes twice every day around meal times and for a few türk lira, you can buy all sorts of things, from eggs, to soda, to bread. Good stuff. Really handy when you don't feel like taking the bus into town.

Now, actually where I work. This is a photo of the Pathology Laboratory from the door. The black desk chair you see is where I sit, and the microscope in front of it is the one that I use. I spend around nine hours in it each day.

I know you all wanted to see my microscope. It's awesome. That petri dish in underneath is filled with washed soil (I'll explain in a few pictures). I look through it to find nematode cysts. That small glass dish just to the right of it is filled with probably a hundred cysts (3 days worth). That small brown smudge in the center is all of them, if that gives you some perspective on how small these things are.

This is at the back of the lab. Those are bundles of wheat sampled from the fields. They were tested for both Fusarium culmorum (crown rot fungus) and Heterodera filipjevi (cereal cyst nematodes), the two disease we work with for the most part.

Through a door at the back of the lab near that wheat is this room. This is a sterile room. You can see the fume hood off to the right for working with chemicals and fungus. A lot of the preparation for experiments happens here. 

These are the sinks just outside the room depicted above. This is where we do our soil washing. The tube coming out of the second sink (from the left) is the Fenwick machine. It washes a lot of soil at once. We never use it. Typically, it's faster to wash in buckets. Here's the process:

1. Soil samples are placed in bucket. The water is added.

2. Samples undergo rigorous mixing to suspend the soil in the water.

3. Suspension is poured through a series of sieves. The first catches the larger materials (root fragments, sticks, large rocks) and then a fine sieve catches the cysts, sand, and organic material, letting the actual soil run through. This result is jarred and given to an intern or employee for inspection.

These are assorted fungi cultures in the lab. They are from samples taken from the fields or growth chamber experiments. All pathogenic fungi.

I mentioned earlier that we've been getting a lot of rain here. This was taken (in the sun) after a particularly severe thunderstorm this afternoon. It was great.

This was a quick picture I snapped of one of the many köpekler (dogs) that roam the campus grounds. I think there are at least ten different ones. There are dogs all over the city too. As well as a great deal of stray cats.

Here I am, hard at work. And clearly fine. So stop worrying. You know who you are...

I suppose that's all for now. On account of the wedding, we didn't make a trip to the city today. I'm intending to go tomorrow, so hopefully I can get some pictures then. I may also roam around campus more extensively (it's enormous). I'll post what I've got on Sunday. Erdoğan says we're spending Pazar (Sunday) in this park in Eskişehir, so I know I'll get some good pictures there. 

Once again, I really appreciate you stopping in to read the blog. Feel free to post thoughts under these posts. I enjoy hearing from everyone!

Çok teşekkür ederim,

İyi geceler—

Andrew