Map of South and West Sulawesi, showing my study site locations.
From Makassar to Tarengge in the top right corner, it's a 12-hour drive.Polewali is 6 hours from Makassar.
Lesson 1: Things are always different in the field
I had tried to be as prepared as I could for this trip, particularly with things that I'm a novice with, and I suspected that working out my method for assessing the state of these trees could be tricky. Given that we were expecting to monitor hundreds of trees I needed a system, so before leaving Australia I met with an eminent statistician friend to nut out how I would assess a tree. It wasn't quick and it wasn't easy—he appeared bamboozled too, but he may have just been tired.We eventually settled on a system of dividing the tree into quarters and giving each a score, and adding these to reach a tree score. Sounds simple enough?
I know, I know, you are already saying it—trees aren't regular shapes! No, they aren't ... but I'd really like to hear your suggestions for making this a randomised, yet systematic process.
My confidence fell to pieces on Day 1 of the Cocoa Project road trip. We arrived at the first farm, the Mars trial at Pinrang (see map) and not only were the trees irregular, but they weren't separate either. You'll see what I mean in the photos below: the canopies overlap, tree to tree, variety to variety. The trees are tall and trying to separate out the branches would quickly drive you nuts. So you couldn't divide the tree into quarters ... nor could you see the entire tree!
No-one realised how shaken I was by this first site but I kept chanting quietly, 'it's always different in the field, it's always different in the field'. I remembered all those field trips with the Conservation Biology course and as a volunteer where we would work out our approach at uni, or in the cabins or campsite, then get out to the actual site and blurt 'what the?...' and have to work it out on-site. If it had not been for all those field trips and all the different little things I learned each time, I would have probably have run home by now.
The photo shows the first cocoa farm I set foot in: Pinrang. The sick feeling from that visit has taken a long time to subside and I still can't help but say 'Pinrang' in the way Jerry Seinfeld says 'Newman'.
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Lesson 2: Wherever possible, take an assistant and take good care of them!
I now understand that I really really was useful when I volunteered to help out on Honours, PhD and other projects—it was a win for them as well as for me. When running a project, get yourself a volunteer, whatever it takes! A scribe is one of the most valuable assets a project can have, but there can be many spinoff benefits, like in the example below. My Assistant (yes, he gets a capital A), is a useful 6-foot tall, with very long arms. I know that his hand here is hitting the giant banana leaf at about 8 feet (that's about 2.5 metres). So, if my project was about variations in leaves of tropical fruit trees I could leave the metal tape measure at home—all important when luggage weight is an issue.
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The
other great thing about a volunteer / assistant, is that usually they
are really happy to be outdoors, doing something that's not terribly
difficult, something they wouldn't normally do. This means that they are
usually able to jolly you along and remind
you that science doesn't have to be all serious, as in the example above.
Tips for volunteer care in hot places
1. At the site. Give them the shady spot to sweat in.
2. Transport. Make sure they have a seat in the 'business class' section of the bus, near the pilot, opposite the open door for maximum air-conditioning and with a little extra leg room.
3. Food. Raid the expense account for energising food and snacks, as in the example below—we stopped the bus for wayside bbq rice 'gogos', 4 for a dollar (but because Assistant had the door seat, he had to hop out to do the shopping). Buy 2 dollars worth!
And then if you are REALLY fortunate, your happy volunteer might be the kind to attract underlings of their own.
Lesson 3: Don't get lost
I remember Prof Mike Clarke warning us about how easy it is to become disoriented in the Mallee in north-western Victoria ... and then having it happen! Spooky.
Some readers might find this Lesson surprising, having heard me rattle on about always knowing where north is, my love of maps, my good sense of direction ... blah de blah. Well, I don't know if it's because at 3 degrees south of the Equator water doesn't know which way to go down the plughole, but I move around the trees clockwise, slowly, assessing individual branches and leaf infections at each one, trying to make sure I start at the same orientation on every tree ... going around the tree, then around the next, then another ... After 25 trees or so, I can stand up and not know which row I'm in, which tree is next, which I've come from. The picture below shows all the rows radiating out—every way you turn, the rows look the same. Luckily, my well-fed Assistant calmly corrects me from his place in the shade, and all is well again.
The sub-lesson here is, if you have a fancy hand-held GPS thingo, use it! The unseen error in the picture below is that the GPS with marked waypoints was forgotten in the backpack. It's not a great photo, but this is really steep—difficult for most vehicles. Luckily the locals knew which way we had to go—down to the river, use the stepping stones to cross and continue 500 metres up the hill.
End of lessons. Next time: Lessons learned about technology, transport and the weather.
BONUS! Observations OUTSIDE the cocoa sites
The parliamentary election campaigns seemed to penetrate everywhere.
This huge billboard was on the road to Toraja, up the mountains. It welcomed the President on his tour to the area, the day before we were there.
And modern girls everywhere do the same things: play with their phones, and pose for photos (Enrekang, on the road from Toraja). Red flowers, red uniforms ... not set up!
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