Agricultural Ecology LAB Yamagata Univ. 山形大学農業生態学分野

  Since the pandemic happening we’re all suggested to be at home. All outdoor activities are banned and left us to do everything online. At first, we may feel that it’s one of the best times for working at home and then it goes for one year and still going. We can’t blame ourselves when it’s getting boring for stuck at home then we have to find new things to entertain ourselves, such as cooking a new meal, home workout, urban farming and also on the internet there are a lot of suggestions to do a lot of things at home during the pandemic. My first thought since I’m an agriculture student, I’ll go for urban farming. I’m planting some simple crops since I have limited space and those are Pandan leaves, Orange, and Crocodile tongue (yes it is!). Actually, those are Indonesian ingredients for making some dishes. Pandan leaves for making a good scent and flavor in sweet dishes, orange we take the leaves for making a spicy and soup-based dishes and crocodile tongue it’s for hair treatment (c

A Visit at the experimental Field (26/07/2021)   Nakayama village is a part of Tsuruoka city. It locates in the mountain area and surrounded by woodland, and a large proportion of the total cultivated area has been abandoned. Sagae San and I (Ernest) visited the experimental field as showed in the pictures there are almost no Weeds and the color of the paddy field is green (good color). it is important to note that mud snails were introduced in this plot. We think that this is just the beginning of the interaction between mud snails and rice plants surely many mechanisms will be discovered.

  Today was my first time in a rice paddy field and I must say the experience was beyond amazing. We left Tsuruoka for Kahoku farm at 5.00am and it took us about two hours to get there. Our Sensei briefed us on the activity of the day which was mainly sampling spiders from the rice paddy fields. The moment I stepped into the paddy and felt my foot sinking I was a bit shaken (thank God for the knee high boots) but I got used to the paddy condition pretty soon and started enjoying the sampling process. I trapped a lot of spiders in some of the sampling region and a few in others. Despite the really hot weather I must say I really enjoyed the activity. We finished sampling before mid-day and our Sensei was kind enough to spoil us to a variety of treats where I got to try eel for the first time...mmhh very delicious! The journey back was wonderful and I really enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the way. We snuck in a few minutes to see the famous and breath taking Jionji three storied p

  Hot days continue to exceed 30℃ every day by day.People are so hot that they are likely to lose their energy, but the crops are growing well because of the strong sunlight.This picture shows Chilli and cabbage.It's getting bigger and bigger, especially the purple cabbage.These peppers and cabbage are completely pesticide-free and fertilizer-free.We will conduct various investigations from now on.Pest investigation, seedling length investigation, etc.First of all, I want to water my crops every day so that they can grow well. Everyone, be careful not to get heatstroke. Thank you for reading through. 毎日30℃を超える暑い日が続いています。人は暑すぎて元気が吸い取られていきそうですが、作物は強い日差しにより元気に成長しています。この写真はトウガラシとキャベツです。徐々に大きくなり、特にキャベツの紫色は綺麗です。このトウガラシとキャベツは、完全無農薬・無肥料です。これから様々な調査を行います。害虫調査、苗丈の調査等です。まずは、毎日水やりを行い、作物が元気に成長していけるようにしたいです。 皆さん、熱中症に気をつけてください。 最後まで読んでいただきありがとうございます。

  I had a opportunity I listened organic farmer(I call him Mr. O ) story in laboratory work. Today, Mr. O grow many kinds of crop without agricultural chemicals and chemical fertilizer. Fertilizer Mr. O uses is bokashi fertilizer. It is organic fertilizer include remain of edamame, rice bran, rice husk charcoal and so on. Weed are also included in bokashi. It is wonderful ！ In the past, he used herbicide in paddy field. But today, he is using paper mulch and machine for measures against weed. He said it is important to make sludgy layer in paddy field. It inhibit growth of weed. 研究室活動で有機農家の方 ( 以下、 O さん ) の話を聞ける機会がありました。 O さんは現在化学農薬も化学肥料も使わないでたくさんの種類の作物を栽培しています。 O さんが使っている肥料はぼかし肥料です。枝豆の残差や米ぬか、燻炭などを混ぜた有機肥料です。雑草も入れたりしているそうです。雑草も肥料にしてしまうなんてすごいですね！昔は水田に除草剤を使っていたそうです。しかし今は紙マルチを使用したり、機械で除草をしたりして対策を取っているそうです。水田の土はトロトロ層にしてあげることも重要だと言っていました。それによって雑草の生育が妨げられるのです。

  These days, rearing the BSF is going well. Now I think I have more than 2000 adult. But I can not count exact number.  I think I need to think about how to do the work efficiently from now. Around chicken compost also going well. Previously I wrote it might be after rainy season, but I saw BSF adult end of June. Now I collected eggs from the chicken compost. Some larvae lived in the trap. So, recently I have many eggs. I am little bit nurvas about the food for BSF and number of BSF at the next generation. Now rearing is going well, I will try to keep that. 最近、ミズアブの飼育がそれなりに順調に進んで、成虫が大体 2000 匹を超えたあたりだと思います。幼虫のほうは数えていませんがかなりの数が確保できています。そのため 今後は作業の効率化などをメインで考えていくことになると思います。堆肥周りのほうも前回のブログでは梅雨明けになるかもしれないと書きましたが、 6 月下旬にはミズアブ成虫が発生してました。今はそこからも卵が取れています。少し勢い余ってトラップのほうにもミズアブの幼虫が住み着いています。最近かなりの数の卵があるので、次の世代でどのくらい増えるのか、どのくらい餌が必要になるのかを考えると少し不安でもありますが、うまく飼育のほうはできているので今後も継続したいと思います。

The last weekend Saturday I was in the field of Kahoku town, and Yamagata city the next day. The weather was rainy in general, it made me feel better and there was no wind. I love this weather condition the most, very much. I just brought a large, in fact, very large bottle of cold tea, mugi-cha, a kind of traditional tea made of roasted barley, and took a very long walk around the rice paddy field. I love to walk as it can give me a lot of time for thinking, and a lot of information. The situation in the pic always gives me some idea for the possible study in the near future. 先日、つい土曜日に河北町の調査に行き、翌日は山形市で、それぞれ田んぼに関した簡単な調査を実施しました。田んぼの畔道をひたすら歩きながら、いろいろ考えて、調査のことだけじゃなく、いろいろです。時折見かける面白い光景、例えば写真のようなタニシがたくさんいる田んぼとか、その時々、いろいろなことを考えます。予想をしてなかったような光景たち。曇り、ちょっと雨、でも風はなく、そういう日のこういう時間がとても大好きです。

Our laboratory is producing Black soldier fly now. Finally, we establish BSF from wild and laboratory population. The number of adults we have more than one thousand and we already have 120 cluster of eggs. The purpose of our study now is to maintain BSF in the city and village of Tsuruoka. This BSF has lot of advantages such as producing manure and animal feeding. We hope our lab can do collaboration with many people and company related with BSF. But, now we will more focus on how we can manage our BSF population in the winter time. We want keep the production of BSF even in the winter time. So I will work very hard for it. 私たちの研究室では現在、アメリカミズアブを生産しています。 最後に、野生および実験室の個体群からBSFを確立します。 成虫の数は1,000を超え、すでに120個の卵のクラスターがあります。 現在の調査の目的は、鶴岡市と村でBSFを維持することです。 このBSFには、糞尿の生産や動物の飼養など、多くの利点があります。 私たちの研究室がBSFに関係する多くの人々や会社と協力できることを願っています。 しかし、今度は、冬季にBSF人口を管理する方法にさらに焦点を当てます。 冬でもBSFの生産を続けていきたいです。 だから私はそれのために一生懸命働きます。

 I have been working in the paddy fields from morning until night on these several days. During a research activity in a paddy field, I encountered a frog (Dryophytes japonica ) but it is blue!  I immediately recognized the blue dot on the carpet of blue-green algae. It was the first time in my 22 years of life. They are so rare that they are sometimes featured in the news. It is said to be caused by a lacking of the gene that produces yellow skin, with a probability of 1/100000. You can see how blue compare with a normal frog as the picture. 朝から晩まで水田で調査する日々が続いています。 水田での調査中に青いアマガエルに遭遇しました。 アオミドロの絨毯の上に青い点がぽつんとありすぐに気づきました。 22年生きてきて初めての経験です。 時々話題になりニュースに取り上げられるほどの珍しさです。 黄色色素を作る遺伝子の異常により1/100000の確立で出現するそうです。 写真のように普通のカエルと比較するとその青さが良くわかります。