Between all of the preparations that went into the weeks leading up to Field Day and wrapping up Summer classes before Finals, it’s been a challenge to find the time to write-up entries for the intern blog as often as I should. With Field Day in the books, and a success at that, now however I’ll take a moment to catch y’all up on everything you’ve missed.
The farm purchased a new spray-rig for herbicide applications. Parker and I assisted in setting up the nozzles on the boom and calibrating the application rate before it could be filled up, driven into the field, and put to work. Though we didn’t handle any of the chemicals ourselves, we were trained on chemical safety and allowed to observe the process of mixing chemical into the spray tank for application, as well as the proper clean-up procedures.
Parker and I finished the landscaping at headquarters by installing a raised bed around the sign on the side of Highway 79. As Field Day quickly approached, we began to focus on manicuring the property to show off all of the landscaping work near the office, and the research being conducted in the fields. Parker and I first removed a few unwanted trees on the roadside fence at headquarters. We then trimmed back all of trees on the inside of the fence-line for more ease of access when mowing before moving on to hand-chopping weeds in some of the smaller research plots. I gained a good bit of experience servicing and operating the groundsmaster riding mower and the shredder implement hooked up to the 110c tractor, which certainly did wonders for my both my competence and confidence in handling equipment before, during, and after use.
Field Day was quite a success, with one of the largest turn-outs in the last few years. Case, John Deer, Kubota, and New Holland dropped off a few tractors along with some equipment to showcase at registration. Several vendors came out for the morning, as well. We had a very informative fencing demonstration from Stay-Tuff fence, and several great talks from various experts in the soil and crops industry on topics such as pest management, cultural practices to increases nutrient availability, among others. The day was brought to an end with a few more talks from some guest speakers from the surrounding county extensions and the presentation of this year’s awards over a chicken-fry lunch.
Later in the week, Parker and I accompanied Ryan to the ‘BIG’ committee meeting in Waco to network with professionals from all different areas of specialty – including production in various crops, beef, wildlife and rural land management, and horticulture – and sit-in on the planning discussion for the upcoming meeting in January. We got to hear about some of the current issues plaguing the industries, along with the many solutions that researchers and produces are working together on to continue developing a more sustainable future for agriculture.
Just last week I the pleasure of accompanying Jimmy out in the cotton fields with the side-dresser to incorporate some fertilizer into the soil. I had the opportunity to operate the tractor and run the side-dresser down the rows myself before the day was over. We’re now looking at gearing back up to plant more sesame with the influx of moisture coming in this week, once the fields are dry enough to get the planter out.
And, of course, throughout the days leading up to and following Field Day Bobby and I have been checking up on each of the Brangus herds and rotating them from pasture to pasture to keep the grazing pressure down. We supplemented them with molasses and mineral again, as well as coastal hay. Hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to work the herds and cut calves to take to sale, soon. It’s definitely been a busy few weeks, but all in all it’s been a good time. Here’s to more to come.”
Respectfully,
Stiles Farm Summer Intern
Cody Garcia ’21 | PSSC | TGSC
College of Agriculture
Texas A&M University | Corps of Cadets
Squadron 23
