Teagan Flaherty - Week 9

Although I continued to work on the research farm this week to harvest crops for the food bank, I also had some unique opportunities! As for my personal projects at the farm, I was finally able to present my QR Code flyers to the public at our Twilight Tour at the Anne Arundel Extension Office. Additionally, I attended the Commodity Classic in Queen Anne's County with my mentor as well as interns Alexandra and Casey! Keep reading to find out what demonstration we were a part of there...

To begin with the typical updates - I continued to harvest crops on the farm as tasked by my mentor. As the summer season goes on, there continues to be more crops to be harvested and dropped off at either the food bank or Pherm Brewery. Starting on Monday (my birthday!) I spent most of my day picking the cucumber and zucchini rows completely clean. Typically we only harvest the largest of the crops and let the smaller ones get up to size, but this week we focused on picking everything completely clean so we can get more ahead of the summer harvesting. In total, we have 4 rows of cucumber and zucchini, which I collected, washed, and stored in the office. The next day, we took this produce to the food bank, totaling a whopping 153 pounds!

All 153 pounds of the zucchini and cucumber, it took me about 3-4 hours to complete all this harvesting on my own! Some of the zucchini was actually so large we had to put it in our compost pile rather than donating it to the food bank.

Additionally, later in the week we were finally able to take the numerous bags of frozen blackberries to Pherm Brewery. We loaded a cooler with all of the blackberries and personally dropped it off inside the facility. I hope they can make an ample amount of product from this. 

Jumping into Thursday was one of the busiest days I have had in the office yet. It started with traveling to the Commodity Classic and ended with our Twilight Tour back at the office. While we did a lot of interesting things at this event, such as listening to extension agent Hayden Schug present about crop scouting, the most exciting activity was the Grain Bin Rescue Tube Training by the National Education Center for Agriculture Safety. I served as the "victim" and was submerged waist deep in corn - courtesy of their training machine. Luckily for me, the staff showed interns Alexandra and Casey how to get me out safely with the Rescue Tube. I had always wondered just how dangerous grain bin rescues can be, so this was a very interesting learning experience. In total, I was retrieved in about 10 minutes, but the staff member showed me that only in that short amount of time I had indentations on my legs from the corn. He explained that if I was in there for hours (as victims typically are), my legs could go numb, paralyzed, or experience compartment syndrome. Super scary! We also were able to talk to other industry members of the Maryland Grain Producers Association, including the Maryland FFA Association, where I saw some familiar faces. 

Gearing up with a harness, helmet, and gloves to be submerged into a demonstrational grain silo. After this photo I was quickly sunk waist deep into corn. Luckily the other interns used the rescue tube to get me out though it was still very difficult. Grain silo safety is very important!

Once we got back to the office, we sprang into full gear for the Twilight Tour event at 5 pm. This included putting up all of the laminated flyers that I had worked on throughout the week. Each crop had its own flyer. In addition to some IPM flyers, I also spent time harvesting some cucumbers, zucchini, sunflowers, and peaches for guests to take home. Beyond this, we also set up ice cream and water for guests, as well as pickles, zucchini bread, and salsa made from crops on the farm. Although my mentor led most of the tour, I briefly explained some of the information on the flyers and facts I have learned throughout my internship. I was even able to fully explain in depth our Moth IPM work with Dr. Kelly Hamby. Overall, it was a successful tour, and we were able to talk to curious community members as well as teach some agronomy information to local urban farmers. 

An example of one of my QR Code flyers for the Twilight Tour. Each crop had a flyer and some had an additional IPM flyer such as the blueberries which had signage for the pest: spotted wing drosophila. The guests could scan the QR codes and learn about cultivation, pests and diseases, cooking recipes, and preserving. I was tasked with doing all of the design, printing, laminating and display myself!

Additionally, in our weekly connection this week, we learned more about global and cultural competencies. Funny enough, one of our presenters presented photos about her travels to places such as Africa, and my mentor happened to be in the photo as well. This reminded me just how important global competencies have been to my mentor, despite him doing most of his work in Anne Arundel County throughout his life. While I have yet to experience a broader range of opportunities to apply my own global and cultural competencies, I have gotten to witness my mentor applying these skills daily. During many of his tours and seminars, my mentor described the work he witnessed in other countries and what he was able to learn from it. Even more so, once we had an entire conversation about the background of insecticides. Although most insecticides in America are artificial and produced in a lab setting, he described how many of the compounds that make up these insecticides are derived from countries in Africa and Asia and are still produced naturally there. Both are made from the same organic chemistry components but derived in different ways. In that moment, I really grew my perspective of international agriculture and the similarities and differences that educate farmers and scientists. Overall, I learned that even when you learn about the differences of another culture to your own, there is almost always some way you can apply it to your own learning experiences. This is information I will now always carry about insecticide use and organic farming in agriculture.