Adventures of a Sun Seeker: The Hunt for Soil Enzymes (A Day In The Life: Soil Scientist)

A Styrofoam Search is how the day began, by Counterpart Chris fellow research technician, and Adorable Ann graduate student, and myself. A hunt to purchase one of those terrible white Styrofoam boxes, to hold and ship certain precious must-be-kept-cold soil samples to a VT lab for soil enzyme analysis. 20 years ago this wouldn’t have been possible: the technology for the enzyme research, and overnighting a package so effortlessly.

Alas, Styrofoam boxes were not in season, and thus I found my work task for the morning becoming a hilarious and frustrating drive around shopping plazas between stores. Finally, Wegmans provided. “This goes against all of my shopping values,” I announced to Counterpart Chris, of the not-previously-owned plastic un-recyclable thing we were purchasing. But, Science. It justifies these acts I hope.

The technician’s life contains unexpected tasks like this, where I learn lessons like: how hard it is to find Styrofoam coolers when it is not beer picnic season.

Our experiment is looking at how different inter- and intra-species cover crop mixtures (designed as forages) influence soil health and success of the cover crop stand. Today we were collecting soil from each of the treatments, sieving it, and then sending it off to a schmanzy lab to see what soil enzymes (proteins that help catalyze things) were present in the soil of the different mixtures.

In a rare display of whimsy, our usually gruff Mr. Farm Manager watched us playing in our soil, and then remarked, “Good luck with your emm-zyme hunt! Maybe you’ll find a striped one or something else interesting.” And I did indeed feel whimsical about it, the hunt for that which I cannot see and which I yet do not understand.

So into the research plots I go, soil probe and bucket in hand. The morning is cold—oh those days of strappy tanks and sunscreen as if I’d only read them in a novel—and I’m puffy and inaccurate in my layers. But as the day warmed up and I worked through the experiment, I stripped systematically and deliciously, leaving a red wool sweater in front of Plot 25A, a scarf outside Plot 26A, a vest at Plot 27A. As if these garments were somehow marking treatments.

But the plots sadly looked little like cover crop plots yet. Our experiment site had seen some mismanagement before we acquired it, and our cover crop treatments were superimposed by an unapologetic blanket of brassica weeds. Although “weeds” does not do these plants justice. Try “shrubs.” Entering a plot required a certain mule-like tenacity, charging headfirst into a thick forest of mustard plants as tall as I was. It was a blizzard of brilliant yellow, all the plants flowering. I elbowed my way along, yellow-tipped branches grabbing me by the waist, others tugging at my ankles. The yellow petals floating into my soil samples, polluting them, causing us a later step: Petal Picking.

And it was a beautiful day and I was outside and I was treating myself to Aretha Franklin and podcasts about love and human behavior as I soil sampled….so the day was one of Soul Sampling as well.

After collection, the afternoon stretched as Adorable Ann and I passed wads of wet soil through fine-meshed sieves. The samples looked at first like goose poos, still in the shape of the corer, and then like brownie dough as we coaxed them through the top of the sieves. Once through the sieve, the resulting sample was a fine pile of intricate coiled crumbs, like the litter on a plate after cutting a particular fragile chocolate cake. Soil crumbs clung to the back of the sieve, like cheese on the backside of a cheese grater. This whole process was very pleasing to my tactile sense. “We are siever servants,” I said to Ann, adding to our pile of sieve and grate puns.

These enigmatic—hopefully some striped—soil enzymes in their wee sample bags: we packed these devotedly on ice packs and into their Styrofoam box. The sun was beginning to set, the skies pink and palpable and puffed like cotton candy. Reach out and it would cling a tendril to your hand.

We were loopy-tired and laughing and celebratory from our long day of work and drove our box to the post office just before it was going to close. We all three piled in line there, all eager to participate somehow, all invested in this mailing experience. Chris held the box, hours of probing and sieving contained inside. “Let’s have our picture with it! Get your phone Ann!” I babbled. We stood in line there, posing and smiling and pointing at this box as Ann photographed us.

“Is that your first box?”

This was from Mrs. Postal Service, amused at our photo shoot. “Oh! We’re next up!” I couldn’t stop laughing then, and the other customers were peering around smiling along with us. We placed the box on the scale, and I handed Mrs. Postal Service my P-Card. “We’re mailing soil enzymes,” we said proudly. We were all still smiling. A generally inhuman interaction of customer and service person now made jolly, what an unexpected bright little turn.

“Are you Sandra?” she then asked, taking the P-card. “Yes,” I said automatically, “would you like to see ID?” “No,” she said, “I mean, you’re Sandra pronounced Sondra; you work with my husband!” And indeed! My office mate, the Indefatigable Brian, spoke of his wife who worked at the post office. (she must have had enough to place me, with the context of a box of soil)

What a pleasing little connection made among us! I love my job. I love Ithaca. Thank you both for a beautiful day.