Liz Ridenour--Week 7

Driving the gator at WMREC

This past week was a bit slower, a good preparation for the coming week, which will be full of activities and research work. 
Following the storm last weekend, WMREC was without power, and then without AC for the remainder of the week, and as I'm writing this, the AC in my office has (finally!) shut on for the first time. 

As a result of the AC outage, I spent much of my time this week either working from home or working from the Washington County office down the road from WMREC, writing articles on managing heat stress (something that felt particularly relatable as temperatures rose in the office at WMREC) and on winter cover cropping, and working to prepare for Amanda and Jeff's research starting in the fall. The project beginning this fall is a comparison of yields on a hay field and a pasture using different amendments as treatments, so my work this week included researching commonly used soil amendment products, where to buy them, and comparing them to similar amendments to find the best products to use as treatments. 

Amada and Jeff moving cattle at WMREC.

I have been learning so much about how applied research works throughout this internship, which is incredibly helpful as I am about to enter graduate school. My prior experience with research has been in a laboratory setting on campus at UMD, and while this research is undeniably important, I'm finding that I gravitate much more towards applied research. Not only do I love how relevant and immediately helpful applied research can be to the agricultural community, but I also enjoy the more variable aspects of applied research: depending on the project, you could be almost anywhere and doing almost anything, including

Some of our animals being curious. 

(especially the case in our pasture-based research here at WMREC) trapsing through waist-high pastures setting up temporary fencing for the livestock or collecting forage samples. It's definitely something I enjoy doing (less so when it's over 100 degrees out, but that can't be helped:), and it's something I'm excited to get more experience with in graduate school and beyond. 

With less public outreach this week and more research work, I have an unfortunate lack of diversity in my photos, but enjoy these lovely photos of our animals at WMREC and our work to keep them happy and healthy. Until next week!

Our cattle getting more comfortable with our presence and coming close to us in the pasture!

Our animals enjoying the shade on a hot morning.