The University of Maryland Extension internship summer program has been a great opportunity to learn what all goes into the Extension workforce development. I am learning a lot from both of my mentors, Kurt Vollmer and Veronica Yurchak, on weed management and vegetable production. A pain point I have is not knowing all the herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides that are out there to get rid of weeds, pests, and diseases. The way I face this challenge is to ask my mentors questions when spraying and mixing, and to do my research.
This past
week at the internship was definitely a busy, hot week. Had a total of three
field day tours during the week on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, we went
to Painter, VA, in the afternoon into the evening to look at their trials, which
were focused on weeds in soybean, corn, cover crop, till-no till, and spot
spraying with drones. On Wednesday, we went to Georgetown, DE, in the morning
to check out their trials, which were the same as Painter, VA, focused on weeds,
except no drones were presented. Then, we went back to the Wye Research Center and
laminated signs for the Wye Research tour in the evening. We put the signs out
in the fields for each trial so everybody knows what is going on with each trial,
what has been done, and the focus of the trial. Our tour was also focused on weeds
in soybeans, corn, cover crop, till-no till, and the cover crop oats in the watermelon
trials.
The rest of
the week, on Monday, I helped Veronica at the Beltsville Research Center with
her tomato study, which is a two-plot design. Using shade cloths and
supplementing calcium to the tomato plants to see if that will help with
blossom end rot. Interns had weekly connections, a Zoom meeting in the
afternoon. Thursday, I helped Kurt mix herbicides in the morning to prepare for
spraying a cover crop soybean field. In the afternoon, I cleaned up the
herbicide bottles from spraying the trial plot, I triple rinsed all the bottles,
erased the numbers on the outside of the bottles, rinsed bottle caps, put all
the spraying equipment away where they belong, and cleaned the bed of the truck
out. Friday, I helped Veronica at the Wye Research Center with her tomato trial
plot. We gathered some samples of thrips in the tomato plots. Calibrated a
backpack sprayer to be ready to spray the tomato trial soon. Looked at thrips
on a tomato leaf under a microscope. In the afternoon, I worked with Kurt
rating a corn trial, looking at what weeds are up in the trials.
 |
| Spot sprayer drone that is used to spray weeds in trials at Painter, VA. |
Me and Elise at the Georgetown Field Day Tour waiting for the
tour to begin. Matching with the UME shirts and hats.
T-post shade cloth set up and supplementing calcium to the
tomato plants to see if that will help with blossom end rot.
Comments
Post a Comment