Shelby Gustafson

        

        During week 3, we were busy at the Wye Research and Education Center Farm. On Wednesday, all the extension interns were invited to go on the MACAA (Maryland Association of County Agricultural Agents) farm tour in Baltimore County, which was a lot of fun and interesting. 

      Monday was spent watching cultivation being done on a soybean field before the soybeans were planted in the ground. Then, we hoed oat cover crops where there are weed-free areas in the watermelon trial because there should not be oats in those areas. The drone planted the oat cover crop seeds in that trial, but some of the oat seeds got planted in some weed-free areas. The watermelon research is a weed management trial seeing if the oat cover crop suppresses the weeds or not by using different herbicides to kill the weeds that are in the alleyways. After that, we checked the plot trials where peppers are going to get transplanted in the black plastic. There was a lot of yellow nutsedge popping out of the black plastic, so we pulled all of them out. Yellow nutsedge loves black plastic because of the heat and moisture it holds under the black plastic, and they can easily poke through the plastic.

Yellow Nutsedge poked through the black plastic.  

       Tuesday, finished making stakes for a soybean trial that just got planted on Monday. Set out the stakes in the plots before spraying the field. Sprayed the entire soybean field except for part of the end piece, which got sprayed with the four-wheeler sprayer since it was just broadleaf weed killer and not a whole bunch of different herbicides getting sprayed in only certain sections of the plots. Then, after all the spraying was done, we cleaned all the spray equipment before putting it all away in their spots, including triple rinsing all the bottles that got used for both spraying areas in that field. After that, the rest of the day was office work on the computer, learning about the ARM website, which is where we plug in important data on the corn and soybean trials that get rated on herbicide, bleaching, and stunting damage. The weather info gets written on that data sheet also, to keep a record of what the weather was like that day that field was sprayed, in case any issues come up with that field, everything is right there, recorded, and to look back on.

       Wednesday was the Maryland Association of County Agricultural Agents (MACAA) farm day tour. We traveled to 6 different tours total for the day that are located throughout Baltimore County with other UME interns and employees. I was able to meet all the interns this day and some more UME employees, which was exciting. We visited a meat-packing shop, a produce farm/ farmers market store, an Angus operation, a thoroughbred horse racing breeding farm, a corn and soybean farm, and lastly a lavender farm. I learned about how all these farms operated, which made this day very educational and enjoyable.

One of the horses from Willow Oak Thoroughbred Horse Racing Breeding Farm. 

        

        Throughout this internship so far, I have used a lot of communication. Communication is key, always. Each start of the mornings and afternoons before going home, I always catch up with my mentors to find out what is going on that day and the next day to get a game plan going. I always ask questions I have to my mentors while we are out in the field or doing office work. There are times when I will not understand something, and I will ask them to repeat something so I have a better understanding of that task. There are also times when my mentor will say a task to do, and I will repeat it back to them to confirm that is what I need to do to make sure the job gets done right.