Puerto Rico Day 3: Seed company tour, plantains, dinner, laughs

On our third day in Puerto Rico we were given the opportunity to take a tour of Pioneer’s Salinas Research Facility.  I had never been to a place like that before, Brad has several times, and I wasn’t sure what to expect.  It may or may not be the same as at other seed companies, I have no idea, but the technology, effort and money that goes into developing a parent line.  The goal with the parent lines is to get 6 good plants and they start out with over 300 potential attempts.

We were able to visit their embryo recovery lab, the part of the lab that works with DNA markers, green houses, and field plots.  They even took us to a neighboring plantain farm and the farmer explained all about plantains to use.  Plantains look like a banana (not as tasty) and appear to grow on a tree with a banana, but they actually grow on a plant.  The tree looking plant is composed of about 42 leaves (kind of like a corn plant on steroids).  It takes 12 months to grow one to full maturity and they have about 1000 plants per acre.  Harvest is not mechanized and the work in these giants plants with a tractor and tillage equipment after harvest.  We had plantains cooked two different ways, my favorite way was when it was smashed and fried a couple times.  It was a little bit like eating a chip.

A picture of the countryside.

After the tour the treated us to a nice lunch in the yard of someone’s house with a band playing.  It was a very interesting tour and now that I have done that I don’t really feel like I need to go see any more.

For dinner we went to a restaurant with other people from our region.  It was a very old building that was very modern inside.  There was actually an art museum next to the restaurant.  It was a great time visiting with people.  It would have been better if the waitress didn’t forget to serve our table dinner for awhile, but it all worked out.  Consistent with the tradition we had going, we met up with a few people in the hotel bar afterwards for some laughs.

We weren't allowed to take pictures at the Pioneer facility, so all I have is this picture of the countryside.