Going to battle, with vegetables.
I'm going into battle — with tomatoes. I trudge daily through a field of 3,000 plants of varying genetic constitution with which I am trying to conquer and, ultimately, expose how inflorescences — the branching structures where flowers are produced — develop. My 'to do' lists comprise a plan of attack. My weapons are a pencil, tags, a pair of tweezers and the pollen that I move from plant to plant. And the plants and the field are my opponents, mounting perilous counter-attacks.
Just last week I lost precious crossbreeds to a blown-out irrigation pipe and an early infestation of a notorious virus-transmitting fly. This is a major setback, because, on average, I have only two growing seasons a year. My fellowship has taught me to think ahead, beyond the end of this season to the next, with a vision for the end of the war. In many cases, the crosses I make now will need to go through four more generations before I see any results, so having this vision is a key component of my research programme.
When I started my postdoc, I made a list of long-term research plans, which, not surprisingly, has been modified as battles have been lost and won. After three years, I am confident I have learned to fight my battles well, but only time will tell if I will win the war.
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Lippman, Z. Winning a plant campaign. Nature 453, 954 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7197-954c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7197-954c