2024

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 I developed a full list of changes that needed to be made to the website, either because events were outdated, or because other elements needed to be changed for clarity or completeness.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 le...

During my introduction to Extension I was able to meet a lot of people I will be working with inside the Frederick Maryland extension building. I was also introduced to my fellow intern Andrea and mentors Mr. Mark and Mr. Nathen they both were very kind, helpful and informative i always feel welcomed in extension and excited to learn and am motivated to learn more and aid in anyways i can at extension. My first day at extension we worked with cows and sheep as well as the duty we had that day was weighing and collecting animal feces. The reasoning behind this is to provide information about general health, rumen fermentation, and digestive function of cows and their digestion checking for sickness parasites or more. Both varieties of animals were healthy and had the desired weight for cattle. After that we made trips to farms to aid in helping farms with possible questions and problems they were facing. Traveling to different extension collaborating on a blog post visiting interesting ...

This its a picture of Nick, Bridget, Jewel and I taking shelter under a tent on farmer Chippy’s farm after it suddenly started to rain. I  have worked on a few different projects since starting for extension. At the University of Maryland, Dr. Izursa has assigned me to provide assistance in the aquaponics lab and greenhouse (which will be used for educational demonstrations and research). Firstly, I helped with creating floating rafts. These will be used to support plants in the deep water raft aquaponics system located in the greenhouse. A deep water aquaponics system is a soilless system that involves plants being fertilized by nutrient-rich fish wastewater. The plants uptake nutrients in fish waste, filtering the water, and fish provide nutrients to the plants. Creating these rafts involved measuring, cutting, drilling holes, and painting. I was largely responsible for drilling holes into the floating raft for the plants to be supported as their roots uptake the nutrients in the...

Ashley and I's booth and game we put together for the activity night! I definitely had fun watching kids play and interact with our educational game! In my second week with the Garrett County extension, I have provided lots of help with our local community outreach gardens, kid’s gardening classes through the Allegany County extension office, the Garrett County 4-H broiler project show, and after- school kid’s activities put on by the Friendsville Elementary PTO. These community outreach gardens have been an enjoyable time for me to connect with people throughout our county who all have the same interest in mind; gardening. Some are well-seasoned gardeners while others are fresh to the ideas and ways of gardening. Our garden work days are an exceptional time for me to break out of my shy shell and help teach inquiring minds about gardening practices and for me to also absorb new information and techniques from our lovely master gardeners coordinators and well- seasoned gardeners. W...

Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm is run by Farmer Chippy who employs locals in the community whether or not they have experience growing crops. They grow anything from lettuce to bananas and have chickens laying eggs everyday. Chippy is a role model in the community an is known for being a positive figure who views life with an artistic eye. This past week I accomplished a lot. I completed my largest task so far, met new interns, and visited Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm. For the AUFPN project that I have been working on, I had to help map out gardens where people grow their own food. Google Earth Pro was used to scan the section of Baltimore City assigned to each intern and locate possible garden sites. One thing I noticed is that Baltimore has a lot of community gardens. Also, a lot of people grow produce in their backyards whether it be in buckets, raised beds, or hanging gardens. We haven’t started interviewing these people yet, but we will be doing that in the coming weeks....

Biomass being weighed on scale, taken on 5/29 by Ciera   The past couple of weeks during my internship I have worked on mostly processing biomass samples for a research project. This consisted of organizing, weighing and inputting data collected from various farms. Before processing the samples, the samples had to be placed in a dryer for 24 hours which ended up being a little time consuming. Nevertheless, we followed the procedure and are now inching closer towards being finished. Another experiment I am working on is a Watermelon drone spraying. To prepare for the experiment, I made labels to mark specific areas in the field. I placed these labels on special water sensitive papers and stored them away until the next time we planned for the drone to spray. My Ag Agent, Haley, has tasked me with conducting a taste panel for her blackberries and blueberries. I have never done or heard of taste panels so I began to research about them using online resources and references from Haley...

April’s goat, Tilly, in her cage when we brought her to the career day at an Elementary school. Coming into my second week as an intern, I was able to learn a lot more about what UME does. On Monday, April and I attended the Sugobots competition, where 5th graders from across the county built their own robots to compete with other schools. I helped guide the kids to different rooms for demonstrations with a high school and middle school robotics team, in addition to helping with lunch. On Friday, we visited another local elementary school for their career day. April brought two of her goats and a rabbit, which the kids loved. On my end, I was able to discuss what it’s like to be in college with the kids and help with the animals. Finally, during the week, I’ve been working on planning a research project, which I am currently narrowing down the topic and hopefully getting the IRB paperwork done as soon as possible. I can see where my prior knowledge and experiences can help me become su...

  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...

  I like how my mentors do little Weed Identification Pop- Quizzes! This one is Mare’s tail. The second time I identified it - I called it Horses hair, so I was on the right track. 🖤Andrea’s Adventures🖤 Start Date: 5/4/24 Hello! Now that I am entering the third week of the internship, I’ve been able to learn so much about Weed Identification and the Agricultural Pests that have been on the rise currently in Maryland. Crop scouting not only brings me back to when I took my Insect Classification and Taxonomy class, but also to my Agriculture Pest Management course that I took my sophomore year of college. I think back to that class with Dr. Hamilton during the beginning of the pandemic. My class was virtual -so the on the field experience and ability to talk to farmers was not the same as that of a regular in person classroom experience. Now that I am in the internships and able to go out to the fields and explore and learn to better my skills in weed identification.  Som...

In this picture I am working with the Horticulture and farm crew at the Wye REC and we are pruning and checking a disease grape study. I am inputting data from Dr. Joseph's weed management trials from last year onto Excel at the Kent County Office. This second week of the workforce development internship under Dr. Vollmer and Dr. Joseph has been very eventful and very crucial to my overall success in this internship. On Wednesday I went to the Kent County extension office for the first time and was shown around and introduced to many people by Dr. Joseph. I learned about how he got to where he is now in his career, and what he is currently working on with extension and his research experiments at the Upper Marlboro Research Center. I also inputted data from last years weed management trials onto excel for him to look over and share. My Chemistry class at Chesapeake College helped greatly with being efficient on Excel. At the Wye Research and Education Center, with Dr. Vollmer and t...

 Holding nox(the kitten) in the tropical plant tunnel after a downpour at Plantation    After finishing my second official week of my internship, I can safely say extension work is one thing after another. Each day that I come into work, I’m not exactly sure what the day will hold. Field work is unpredictable, you never know who you’ll meet, and new people are going in and out of the office throughout the week. There is always a new person to talk to or a new experience to reflect on. And I couldn’t imagine a better internship. It really keeps you on your toes in excitement. One of the biggest events from this week was our visit with our mentor to Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm. I have never seen anything like it, or met people quite that amazing before. I truly had no idea what I signed up for when I agreed to go on a farm tour, but an enchanting mix of old and new, of crumbling and restored, was not my expectation. The owner, Farmer Chippy, truly loved the work that...