Studying the soybean nodulation at McGill University

This summer I had the great opportunity to do my three months training in McGill University in Quebec, Canada. It is one of the oldest Canadian universities, considered one of the most prestigious universities in Canada and one of the best in North America. According to the Times Higher Education Supplement it is the best Canadian school and it is among the 25 top universities of the world. With Concordia academy, McGill is the one of the two English universities of Montreal. McGill is divided into two campuses. The main campus is set upon 32 hectares at the foot of Mount Royal in Montreal's downtown district. A second campus—Macdonald Campus—is situated on 650 hectares of fields and forested land in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 32 km west of the downtown campus. McGill has 21 faculties and professional schools and offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study. The university also has field research stations in Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Schefferville, Quebec; Axel Heiberg Island in Nunavut; and Holetown, Barbados.

[...] At that point, its sole purpose was to administer the McGill bequests on behalf of the college. The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning continues to exist and is the "legal person" that runs the university and its various constituent bodies, including the former Macdonald College (now Macdonald Campus), Royal Victoria College (the former women's college turned residence) and the Montreal Neurological Institute. The Institution's name appears on all cheques cut by the university Early years The first classes were held in Burnside Place, James McGill's country home, until the 1840s when the university began construction on its first buildings, the central and east wings of the Arts Building. [...]

[...] The seeds were planted on sterilized vermiculite (Figure 11) in two trays (one for nodulating soybean and another for non-nodulating), whose bottom was covered with plastic. All was kept moist during all the germination. Trays were put in growth chamber (temperature: photoperiod: 16h, Humidity not controlled) during more or less 5 days and watered each day with about one litter of distilled water. For the first two experiments, I used old seeds which gave bad plants with stunted, wrinkled and brown first two leaves. [...]

[...] The resources and the needs of McGill University are presented in Figure 4. Around 50% of the revenues come from the government grants from the federal indirect research from the tuition fees from sales of goods and services from donations and finally 17% from self- financing activities. About the expenses are dedicated to the faculties (240 million it is the more important expense for the university. In 2006-2007 they plan to expense around 270 million Canadians dollars for the faculties. [...]