Stiles Farm

Stiles Farm

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension

McKenzie Summer Intern Week 1

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Week 1
 
Hey there!
It has been a busy first week here on the Stiles Farm. I came into the internship position not knowing much about farming and ranching, but just within this week I have learned a significant amount of knowledge about the farm and how it runs. I have been learning and following along with Nathan, the farm assistant, who has shown me the ropes on how to do many tasks here on the farm. I have already learned how to drive one of the tractors and how to properly fix fences.
This week we mostly spent checking fence lines and ensuring that the cows were safely in the correct pastures. The recent storms have done some damage to the fences so we went and fixed up the parts of the barbed wire fence that needed straightening and patching. We additionally moved cows this week with the help of the cowboys. During this process we worked with the cows, making sure they each had ear tags, vaccinations, and that the males were castrated. The cows were then loaded and placed into a new pasture. Overall this week has been so much fun and I’ve already had many great experiences here at Stiles Farm.
– McKenzie Rodriguez
Summer Intern

Summer Intern McKenzie -Week 2

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Howdy!

Week two on the Stiles Farm has been filled with lots more learning experiences and getting ready for the farms big field day. This week I have helped prep the front entrance and area of the farm for field day, although the rain and bad weather has been holding up a few of our projects for the week. In between thunderstorms I was able to learn how to use the weed eater and how to do maintenance on it. I also went with Mr. Collett to pick out some flowers and trees for landscaping the front of the farm. I just finished planting them today and the property is already starting to look great. We are going to pick up some mulch in the next couple of days to finish the gardening project! Our other projects for field day will continue on throughout next week. I additionally checked in on the cows a few times throughout the week ensuring they had enough grazing food and water. With the temperatures warming up we will have to make sure that the herd has plenty drink.

 

McKenzie -Summer Intern

Week 2

 

 

Kory “Red” Kiernan-Fall Intern Blog 4

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This past week we replanted the spinach in the garden as well as applied organic insect spray to deal with an ant problem. Our cabbage was nearly wiped out but we think it can still recover. We have all the piping for the aquaponics made and running as well as a fully enclosed and ready chicken coop. All we need to do now is buy the fish and chickens and those 2 operations will be up and running. We may try and make those purchases this week while the kids are on Thanksgiving break. It’s finally started to cool off more here so it’s feeling really good outside every day. Which is good because there’s still lots of what to be planted and cows to be worked in the coming weeks
Kory “Red” Kiernan-Fall Intern

Tiger Pride Farm is working hard at Stiles Farm Foundation

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I got to spend sometime out with the students from Tiger Pride Farm this past week they are working hard on the garden, from weeding by hand and hoeing the veggies are coming along and you can see them sprouting up, putting in drip line, cleaning out a room in the old fish house we will be turning into a chicken pen, and replacing water line with PVC, getting the tanks ready for the aqua phonics fish to come. Just a few pics from one day.
Way to go guys from Tiger Pride Farm!
Virginia Moerbe

Thrall Tiger Pride Farm is moving along by Kory “Red” Kiernan

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Since the high school is now able to come out here a lot more often we’ve been putting a lot of effort into getting the farm project up and running. Every dirst half of the day we’re putting in irrigation and planting transplants/ direct seeding vegetables.

 

Our current transplants are golden acre cabbage with blooms fake spinach in the ground already. After we get the garden completed we can start work on the other aspects of the farm. 

The garden is up and running good. Every day we’re adding more and more irrigation and transplants still. We now have 5 rows of spinach planted and a couple of rows of golden acre cabbage and early jersey cabbage transplants in the ground. We think the spinach was too hot when we planted it so we will probably re plant it in the coming week. Broccoli transplants should be coming up this week as well so we can plant them.

 

We’ve also begun work on clearing out part of the fish house to make a chicken coop and making metal stands for the aquaponics system.  Lots of people from town have been really helpful with the project as well. A local sign maker even offered to make us a sign for the produce shop when it comes time to harvest.

Tiger Pride Farm at Stiles Farm Foundation

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The Thrall ISD Agriculture Science Practicum students have been spending their mornings working on the “Tiger Pride Farm” area at Stiles Farm. The past two weeks, they have worked on irrigation and planting spinach and cabbage. We are very happy to have this class out here at the farm.

Partnership Opportunities

Stiles Farm can run multiple projects at once thanks to the demonstration and research plot model. If you or your company would like to partner with Stiles Farm, we are looking for partnerships in long term conservation tillage and cover crop research, precision agriculture technologies, innovations in beef cattle production, the economics of small acreage horticulture production in the blacklands, and use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) in agriculture production. For partnership ideas, contact Ryan Collett at (512) 898-2214 or rmcollett@ag.tamu.edu.