This week during our internship connection we had the opportunity to hear from Jeff Semler and Anna Glenn. While both of these presentations and discussions were great, our prompt this week focuses on cross-cultural competencies. In the past I have traveled outside of the country and experienced different cultures, but this internship has opened my eyes to new experiences. So far during my time as an intern I have collaborated with many mennonites as well as a monastery. Cross-cultural competencies can help us to recognize our differences and maintain respect. As a community it is important to learn from one another's diverse backgrounds while collectively working towards the betterment of agriculture.
Aside from our weekly connection on Monday, we spent lots of time in the pastures once again doing maintenance and building fences.
On Tuesday we had a fun day touring farms and starting on a new research project. We traveled with Jeff and a professor from UMD to a few local farms to scout spots for research equipment. They are planning to set up air samplers and equip barn cats with cameras to study the presence and potential spread of avian influenza.
Wednesday we were back at the Washington County Extension office to prepare for fair week. We spent most of the day making, checking, and organizing sale bidder documents.
Thursday started off by taking forage samples for the grazing study at WMREC. Once we finished, we traveled to one of South Mountain Creamery's farm locations to hang sticky traps. We put up a total of five traps that will be collected in a week and sent off to be analyzed. While we were there we were able to see their fully automated milking barns. The cows are milked with robot milkers and fed with operator-free robot feeders. Additionally, the barn aisles are kept clean with a roomba-like robot manure scraper that disposes it into a pit. It was crazy to see the amount of cows the farm has and the little amount of workers that were in the barn!
Lastly, on Friday we had the opportunity to meet with specialists from CMREC and tour the equine and dairy facilities. I had so much fun getting to meet new people and learn about CMREC. I especially enjoyed the equine facility as I have had little experience with horses during my time as an intern.
Aside from our weekly connection on Monday, we spent lots of time in the pastures once again doing maintenance and building fences.
On Tuesday we had a fun day touring farms and starting on a new research project. We traveled with Jeff and a professor from UMD to a few local farms to scout spots for research equipment. They are planning to set up air samplers and equip barn cats with cameras to study the presence and potential spread of avian influenza.
Wednesday we were back at the Washington County Extension office to prepare for fair week. We spent most of the day making, checking, and organizing sale bidder documents.
Thursday started off by taking forage samples for the grazing study at WMREC. Once we finished, we traveled to one of South Mountain Creamery's farm locations to hang sticky traps. We put up a total of five traps that will be collected in a week and sent off to be analyzed. While we were there we were able to see their fully automated milking barns. The cows are milked with robot milkers and fed with operator-free robot feeders. Additionally, the barn aisles are kept clean with a roomba-like robot manure scraper that disposes it into a pit. It was crazy to see the amount of cows the farm has and the little amount of workers that were in the barn!
Lastly, on Friday we had the opportunity to meet with specialists from CMREC and tour the equine and dairy facilities. I had so much fun getting to meet new people and learn about CMREC. I especially enjoyed the equine facility as I have had little experience with horses during my time as an intern.
This is an image of a sticky trap we set up at South Mountain. They were all set facing towards the south and will be collected in one week. After this, they will be replaced two more times to collect samples for the end of July and some time in August.
This is an image from our forage sampling. We place a metal square on the ground and cut everything within the square. Using the shears we clip the forage to be about 3-4 inches from the ground. Everything we clip is put into the paper bag and weighed.
This is one of two automated feeders at South Mountain Creamery. It dispenses new silage to the cattle while also sweeping the previous feeding back up to the bunk and out of the aisle.
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