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| Large group of Japanese Beetles |
Monday started with our weekly internship discussion. We had two guest speakers related to the topic of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Our first speaker, Amanda Shaffer, discussed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in agriculture and general society. Her discussion and questions shed light on inherent biases that I was oblivious to. Our second speaker, Julia Groenfeldt, Presented about the food equity council in PG County. Ms. Groenfeldt’s presentation revealed some of the programs in place to help distribute food equitably to those in need. One of Extension’s primary missions is the dissemination of information equitably, and I have seen some examples of this during my internship. One example is the weekly IPM reports which contain information related to IPM practices and environmental factors. Another example is newsletters the Ag agents send out about events. I’m sure there are many more examples of Extension promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion that I have yet to see, and many more beyond that. After the weekly discussion, I went crop scouting around Frederick County with Mark. While scouting corn we ran across some Southern rootworm beetles and saw signs of damage caused by Southern rootworm Larvae. There were also a lot of Japanese beetles hanging around. We also visited a soybean field that had almost flowering soybeans, and a lot of weeds. Some weeds of note were Mares Tail and a lot of Carolina Horsenettle, which Mark despises.
Tuesday was another busy day, this time in Howard County with Nathan. I spent most of my morning working on some projects Mark had assigned me. The two main projects are helping upload maps into OneSoil, and writing a literature review about the Haney Soil Health tool and its applications. It was easier to do some of the work at the Howard County office because the wifi there is a little better than at my office in Frederick. Around lunchtime, we hopped downstairs to visit a pop-up farmers market outside of the office building. It was nice to see people gather to help support a local farm, and the blueberries were really good. After that Nathan and I went to visit a couple who was interested in trying to farm a plot of land. We had a tour of the property and had some time to bounce some suggestions around with the landowners. After that, we went to scout corn at CMREC. We found some of the southern rootworm beetles, but no signs of damage to the current crop. We also found a lot of Japanese beetles.
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| Farmers Market outside the Howard County office |
Wednesday and Thursday were a bit more laid back. I teleworked on Wednesday because of car troubles, which gave me time to work on the OneSoil project. On Thursday I attended the Frederick County staff meeting and got some work done on the lit review.
Friday was a whole other adventure. I started the morning doing some work on the lit review project, then spent the afternoon collecting PSNT samples for the manure injection project. It was nice to get out of the office and be physically active, but walking through corn that is head high is very irritating. Something of note was that we didn’t see any Japanese beetles in any of the fields we took samples from.
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| Southern Rootworm Beetle |
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