Shelby Gustafson

 

            On Monday, I helped Kurt weigh rye cover crop biomass that came out of a soybean and cover crop study to test the residual herbicide, and how it would affect the herbicide with the rye cover crop. Also, cover crop biomass helps with soil health, weed suppression, and increasing yields. Then, we plugged in data on the ARM website for weed rating, corn rating, and biomass weight. In the afternoon, I helped Kurt and Jadon rate soybeans to see what weeds are popping up and how many are in the trial plots. The interns then participated in their weekly Zoom meeting, where Steve Darcy from the PG County Soil Conservation District was the guest speaker. He discussed emerging trends in agriculture, including topics such as soil health, best management practices, and climate control. During my internship with mentors Kurt and Veronica, we explored various farming methods at the Wye Research Education Farm, including cover crop studies, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), crop rotation, no till and tillage methods, as well as pesticides, herbicides, fungicide, and fertilizer treatments, along with climate control practices. These methods align with many of the themes Steve Darcy covered in his presentation, as much of our work focuses on improving soil health, enhancing management practices, and addressing climate-related challenges. The data and research we gather are shared with farmers and growers to help them overcome issues with crops, weeds, pests, and other challenges, offering guidance on how to manage these problems for a more successful yield.

On Tuesday, I helped Kurt in the morning mix up herbicides and organic herbicides to spray on a soybean field, but first, we flame-weeded some organic plots that cannot have any chemicals added. Flame weeding heats the water in the weeds and kills the weeds, but some do not instantly, so we will have to go back and do it probably 3 or 4 more times to kill the bigger weeds. It is better to do the flame weeding in the morning when there is more dew on the weeds. It takes a second for the flame to heat the water on the weed. Then, I went with Veronica to transplant sweet potatoes into black plastic. Then, we put new vapors in three of her pest traps to catch corn earworm moths and cutworm moths that will destroy sweet corn. I helped her take down the black light trap and hang sticky cards throughout her tomato trials to see if they catch any thrips and see how many are on the cards.

On Wednesday, it was an office day. I worked on the ARM website on getting the 2024 weed control results into Google Drive to set up the 2024 weed control book. Then, I worked on some other things on the computer that I needed to get done for the internship.

On Thursday, I helped Veronica with her tomato trials at Beltsville Research Center. We put labels out for each rep so we know what each rep is for when spraying and collecting data. Then, with a leaf greenies data probe (SPAD meter probe) reads the greenies of the leaves and tells us how much nitrate the plant is getting. Comparing it to unshaded and shaded, and the different kinds of setups of the shade cloth being draped over and hitting the leaves, or the t-post shade cloth not hitting the leaves, but giving them shade over the top of them. We think the plants are likely to show lower nitrate in the unshaded plants than the shaded plants because the plants will be going through heat stress, which will make the plants stop photosynthesizing, so they will not be able to pick up any nutrients. Nitrate levels are good, around 50-60. Checking for the uptake of nutrients coming up to the plants, and specifically the calcium levels. Some of the tomato plants get fed calcium through the drip tape once a week. Once a week, the leaf greenies probe will have to be done on the plants. The tomato plants also got fertilized through the drip tape.

This is the SPAD meter probe to check the 
grennies in the leaves to tell us how much nitrate
the tomato plants are getting. 

Rating a soybean trial to see what weeds have
came up. Just looking for morning glory, pigweed,
 lambsquarter, and grasses. 

This is the flame weeding equipment 
that was used to flame weed the weeds 
in the organic plots.