Teagan Flaherty - Week 7

This week included more harvesting on the research farm (per usual), as well as a fun and informative agricultural education tour and planning an entomology workshop for 4-H! Additionally, with all the harvesting, we were able to make a few short trips to the Anne Arundel Food Bank and finally visit Pherm Brewery. It has been a long (and hot/humid) process of learning what goes into harvesting crops on the farm, but I truly have expanded my knowledge of IPM, crop diseases, and advocacy for extension. This has all been a great experience for me as we prepare for our Twilight Farm Tour next week. 

Starting at the beginning of the week, we went outside and harvested 240 lbs of peaches! I was able to do this after harvesting the remaining blackberries. Harvesting this many peaches was a difficult but rewarding experience for me. It is 1. Super hot and humid outside 2. Peach fuzz gets all over your arms, hands, clothes, and face. 3. June beetles and honey bees are constantly flying at your face and 4. It is sometimes difficult to find a peach that is at the right stage and isn't chewed on by insects. As I have mentioned in my articles, working on the research farm has opened my eyes to the extent of large-scale agriculture. I can't imagine what it was like to be a worker on a several-acre peach farm during this recent heatwave. It made me wonder how they handled these conditions, not just for the workers but the plants as well. Regardless, by the end of the day, we were able to take these peaches to the Anne Arundel Food Bank and do the same with an additional 180 lbs of peaches later in the week. 

This is what 240 lbs of peaches looks like - each container was filled to the brim with ripe peaches! I really hope this makes a difference in the community through the Anne Arundel Food Bank and that someone gets to enjoy this delicious produce!

Beyond the peaches, there were multiple other tasks to take care of on the farm as well. One of my main tasks as an intern is to maintain the IPM work being completed with Dr. Hamby at UMD. It has officially been 3 weeks since I last changed the lures in the pest traps, so I went out again to do it. So far, we have found only one fall armyworm, but I am curious what I will find this week. I was also able to harvest other crops besides peaches, such as cucumbers and jalapeños. While the jalapenos were quite plentiful (about 30-40 lbs), the cucumbers should be more plentiful for us to pick this upcoming week. Both of these harvests were washed, packaged, and taken to Pherm Brewery. I have never seen firsthand what it is like to be a supplier of agricultural goods to a local business, so it was great to hear the owner's feedback on the produce's freshness and smell. I love the thought that there are people out in the world consuming what my mentor and I spent so much time harvesting. 

Here I am changing the pest lures on the research farm - this trap holds the lure for the Western Bean Cutworm. In this image I am checking the trap to make sure there are not moths stuck in the opening to add to my count. Each trap gets one lure every 3 weeks and an insecticide strip to euthanize the insect.

On Thursday, I got a little bit of a break from harvesting as we were invited by the Anne Arundel Farm Bureau and Southern High School FFA to their agricultural education tour. Here we were able to see multiple operations in Anne Arundel, such as Homestead Gardens (nursery/landscape), Enticement Stables (horses), Holiday Memories (Christmas trees), Rockhold Creek Barn (where FFA/4H keep their livestock), and Hopkins Family Farm (soybean, corn, silage). While I am pretty familiar with agricultural education, it was nice to see how board members and local delegates learned about the importance of agriculture. My mentor also gave a presentation on agriculture, and I briefly spoke about my own pathway into extension work. It was a very informative tour, and I have every hope that students at Southern High School will receive support for their endeavors. 

On a vintage tractor!! The owner of Hopkins Family Farm graciously let me and others ride on their equipment they use on a daily basis. This tractor was very traditional and made me feel like a farmer! It has been in their family for many years. I also was able to sit inside a more modern combine and was shocked at how high up I was. 

I am very confident that, based on the skills I learned this summer, I will be able to bring a better perspective to helping farmers adapt to change. I am very involved in pesticide work at UMD and am a minor in entomology. When you're in the lab working on trials and measurements, it is easy to forget the real-world applications of these pesticides and the broader community we are working to improve. I hope the communication skills I developed during my tours throughout this internship will help me advocate for an extension to a greater extent than before. I have definitely gained experience talking to people with diverse backgrounds in agriculture. I have also gained so much hands-on experience in the research farm and how traditional agriculture works. I better understand the prevalence of these pests and crop diseases and how quickly they can damage an entire harvest. I know that, in the future, I want to go into entomology, of course, and hopefully continue research that connects with extension, but I am now much more passionate about the daily challenges farmers face and how pesticides can help feed the growing population. My mentor always says, "Every farmer a better farmer," and I want to apply that to my work to make agriculture more successful.