Mikaela Seltzer

 

Picture One is of the Wheat Tour, I went on with Nicole. That was the second field we visited.

I went on a Wheat Tour with my mentor Nicole on Monday the 3rd. We went to different

wheat farms and saw different varieties of wheat, and various growing conditions, and we

saw how a disease that would normally infect the whole head of the plant only affects the one

cornel a small section of the wheat head. On Tuesday I went pest sweeping with Emily

through a soybean field which was something I had never done before. In the afternoon, I

had the chance to meet my third mentor Shannon. We went over what I would be working on

with her and what projects we would be doing this summer. The next day I had the chance to

dig into one of the projects and get through almost all of it. Friday I was in Dorchester. I

helped mulch blackberries with Ciera a fellow intern when we were almost done with the

mulch. There was spray irrigation on the edge of the cornfield, so we went under the

irrigation to cool down because it was pretty hot and it was a nice cool-down break. It was

my first time ever being under spray irrigation and it felt just like rain (We did get permission

before going under the irrigation!). That was a highlight of my week! I have some experience

working in an office and what it entails, and I am used to doing work outside such as

mulching and pulling weeds. Some goals that I have for my internship are: maintaining a

strong work ethic, learning more about agriculture, and learning how to navigate a new job.

Some things I am learning about in this internship are, spraying pesticides and the proper way

to make them, inputting, and collecting data, organizing statistics. I will be learning about

experiments in variety trails, pest control on squash, collards, and other miscallense

vegetables.

Picture Two I was sweeping for bugs in a soybean field with Emily.

Picture Three is of the wheat growing at the Wye Research Center. Nicole was showing me how to roughly tell when wheat is dry enough to harvest.