Shelby Gustafson

        Hi, my name is Shelby Gustafson. I graduated from Delaware Technical Community College in Georgetown, DE, with an Associate of Applied Science in Production Agriculture degree in May 2024. This past March, I was accepted into Unity Environmental University in Maine, which can be offered in person or online. I am majoring in Sustainable Horticulture at Unity to receive my bachelor's degree. I am also planning on doing an online certificate program at Purdue University to gain more knowledge on agronomy. I am from Church Hill, Maryland, which is in Queen Anne's County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. My goal is to further my education in pasture management for the health of livestock, soil, and forage production.

        While interning at UME this summer, I will be working at the Wye Research & Education Center in Queenstown, Maryland. I will be working with two mentors, Veronica Yurchak, Extension specialist for Commercial Vegetable Production, and Kurt Vollmer, a weed management specialist. I will be working on many different varieties of trials that will be involving in vegetable, agronomic crop production, and weed management.

        I have been surrounded by agriculture for as long as I can remember, and still am to this day. While in middle school, I joined 4-H and was an active member until I reached the age limit for 4-H. I was also in FFA throughout high school. At Delaware Tech, I joined the FFA group there, and now I am currently in the FFA alumni group for my high school. I interned with Willard Agri Service during the summer of 2023. I know UME does a lot of research, problem-solving, and collecting data on trial plots throughout Maryland to aid the Maryland Residents. This internship will help me improve my professional skills, and I will be digging deep into research and problem-solving skills with each trial I work on this summer.

        While collecting and researching field data and learning from my two mentors, I guarantee this summer will play an important role in my future with pasture management. I can use those research and problem-solving skills to help me when I get out in the working world with different pastures and issues that may come up.

Transplanting different kind of variety of watermelons on trial plots. 

Here I am doing a stand count on a soybean trial plot. I'm looking for pest and herbicide damage, and how many soybeans were in two rows, 5 feet long.