Mikaela Seltzer

 

In the film, “Delmarva and the Ground for Change” what stood out to me the most was Harborview

Farms and their no-till farming practices. One of their fields had a problem with wet spots whenthey got it and for a while, it was no-till until they put in vegetables and tilled the field.

There was some heavy rain that year and they ended up dealing with the wet spots again whereas

if they had not tilled the field this problem would not have arisen again. This really stood out to me

because if they left the field as no-till they probably would not have had the problem of wet spots in the

field again. I also found it fascinating how tilling a field can cause problems that were taken care of to

come back because of tilling the soil. I have seen a lot of farmers practicing cover crops, no-till, and

crop rotation.

This a young deer I saw with my mentor Emily at
LESREC after we had composted the rotten squash. 

I am learning a lot more about cover crop and crop rotation through my internship and how occasionally

there can be a disease caused by the cover crop after it has decomposed a little, but the plant matter that

is added back into the soil from the dying plant matter helps to build and maintain the soil health. crops

I have seen precision agriculture used to monitor dairy cows and their health and also when farmers use

auto-steering equipment to help plant their fields. It is really cool that such technology has been

developed to help farmers with efficient planting and managing their farms.

This is from when I helped the Master Gardener at Talbot 
make a seed-cleaning video.
I was sorting the seeds putting them in the yellow envelopes and sealing them with their labels