Saturday, February 6, 2010

Blog back log

More than 3 months of back log to be blogged. But where is the time to do it? This is probably one of the things PhD students face. How to manage the time efficiently so that all things in the to do list could be ticked as done. So far in my list there are some items that have not been ticked yet, i.e. not yet done. One of them is to update my fishful existence blog. Since I came back from Stirling last mid- Dec I have been swamped with lots of work to be done. The major one in relation to my project was the preparation for the Inception Workshop in January. A 4 day workshop which entailed months of preparation ... finally it's over! But the work has just begun. Right after, trips to farms and the like. And the preparation sampling frame, timetable, contacting people, etc. Attending meetings as well where most of the stakeholders for my project were present. For the past weeks I've been listening about and looking at shrimps, tilapia, prawns, striped catfish, ponds, cages, exports, etc. Gathering information along the way. Trying to make sense of these information, in a way that they could be written later. Hmm not really later later, I know gotta write them soon. I promised my supervisors to send them regular reports of my field activities. I still have my research notebook to be filled in with my notes. I have a smaller notepad to bring to the field, and then the notes will be written on this huge research notebook. Getting into the habit of recording everything. Yes, that's right, writing by hand and not typing them into the computer.

These are tilapia swim-up fry ready to be transferred from trays (in the hatchery) to hapas in pond for the sex-reversal process. They are nursed in the hapas for 21 days, after which they reach 2-3 cm and ready to be sold to grow-out farmers.

Red tilapia grown in hapas in pond. They will be ready to be processed into fillets in a few weeks' time. Tilapia fillets are mainly exported, although some are also sold locally. I like red tilapia (pla taptim) deep fried!

Pacific white shrimp grown extensively in ponds where the cages containing tilapia are set-up. White shrimp can be grown in polyculture with river prawns in this kind of system. Feed is given to the tilapia in hapas while the shrimps and prawns in the pond survive on natural food.