03/19/08 Idaho lab's PCN analysis, part 3

It's not the most exciting job in the world but its importance can't be understated. BECERRA "I think it takes a special person to do it frankly. I don't think I could do it. It's basically very repetitive. There's three major tasks and they're done all day long, repeat ten thousand times or how ever many." Idaho Quality Assurance Laboratory Manager Michael Becerra says his lab employees have a tedious, monotonous job looking at five pound soil samples for potato cyst nematodes. Becerra says because it's boring, something could be overlooked and that's why cysts are sometimes planted in the soil samples. BECERRA "These folks never know when they might find a planted cyst and if they don't find it then that means they've become jaded and that's a problem and to my surprise nobody has ever failed the test." Over 45 thousand samples have been analyzed at the Twin Falls lab. That's 112 tons of dirt. What do you do with the dirt once is been tested? BECERRA "The effluent from the cans that the samples are washed in, the Fenwick cans, goes out through a manifold, it goes outside. It goes into basically a modified dumpster and there the heavier than water material will settle out. So basically that's all the dirt." The water is collected and then sent into the sewer system while the dirt is taking to a landfill. As the weather warms the lab work will begin to intensify as new samples are brought in. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott