Raven Noel Herren

This image was taken on the tour I was present for at CMREC. We had a good number of individuals from the clean water conference attend and we also talked about the new water system demonstration site being constructed on the farm. Pictured is a February heifer from the heifer barn.

Hello from Western Maryland! 

When starting my Internship, I worked with Dr. Amanda Grev on developing ways that the University of Maryland’s forage webpage could be improved. I developed a full list of changes that needed to be made to the website, either because events were outdated, or because other elements needed to be changed for clarity or completeness. This task ensures that the most pertinent and correct information is displayed to the public. A major project deriving from the website review was developing a list of common warm-season and cool-season annual and perennial forages commonly found in Maryland. For each plant, I found or developed a general description of the plant, its leaves, stems, flowers, roots, advantages, and disadvantages. This information came majorly from the USDA NRCS documents, the University of Missouri, the University of Kentucky, or previous information from the University of Maryland. This project is exciting to be a part of so that the University of Marland’s forage page can now provide beneficial information to anyone who is interested in the common forage legumes, grasses, etc. Additionally, this will help farmers and agriculturalists identify the plants in their fields if they do not recognize them, and determine what plants are most beneficial for their individual needs of nitrogen fixation/erosion control/pasture or any combination. An extension of this project throughout the summer that I will be working on is identifying these plants in the fields and taking pictures of these plants so that we also have images for individuals to look at in conjunction with the worded descriptions. 

Developing this project took a lot of my time recently in order to find reputable, correct information, develop a clear and concise description, and organize the document correctly. I am hopeful that the information I compiled will be implemented on the webpage shortly, however, it may be delayed until images for each species can be taken or found so all information is uploaded on the web page at one time. 

Another activity I have completed in my short time at my internship is a tour of the Central Maryland Research and Education Center (CMREC). There was a Clean Water Conference for individuals in the industry or who were interested near Washington D.C. Part of the convention included a pick of tour sites for attendees, one of which happened to be CMREC. With Dr. Grev, I was able to assist on the tour while also being able to go on the tour to learn a little more about CMREC, its current projects, and water. 

The next project I will be working on is developing a basis for a research project about identifying forages through applications utilizing artificial intelligence. While these applications have been utilized for typical domestic horticultural plants, my mentors and I are interested in their ability to identify forages, without flowers, and in various stages of maturity.