A Summer Filled with Test Plots!

Hello everybody! Like Daniel this is my first blog post too and I'll be giving a few details about my internship.

This summer I am working at a small contract research company called ABG Ag Services in Sheridan, IN. The majority of their work is facilitating research projects for large ag research companies like Bayer, Dow AgroSciences, Syngenta, Monsanto, BASF, Mosaic etc. They are hired to administer a project and collect data on a specific area of interest. What it basically boils down to for me is experiencing a huge variety of projects that I will lend a hand in this summer.

So far the major emphasis has been obviously in getting all the trials planted but there has also been a fair amount of spraying pre-plant and pre-emergent herbicides. We have almost all of the trials in that require a "normal" planting time, and we have even planted some sorghum and cotton here in Indiana to do some work with them! My responsibilities so far have included working ground before planting, planting with the cone planter, spraying by hand boom and with a tractor mounted sprayer, spreading fertilizer and these past few dry days I have started in on plot maintenance (keeping the alleys between trials clean of weeds etc.).

It has definitely been busy and there have been a few days where we went by the old saying "make hay while the sun shines," so needless to say there have been some long days. I'm looking forward to the rest of the summer when I get to see some of the results and data from these projects and I hope to learn quite a bit.

Joey Heneghan
Agronomy Ambassador
Junior, Crop & Soil Science

Summer 2011 Internship

This summer I am interning at L&L Environmental in Southern California. It is a small family owned firm that deals with Biology, Archeology, and Paleontology. I am learning a lot about mitigation and surveying sites. I am also meeting lots of people from the Army Corps of Engineers and local state agencies. The main projects I have been involved with are a project with endangered Desert Tortoise on it and a project with endangered Burrowing Owl on it. Through these projects I am learning how to identify these animal's habitats and common plants for this region. I am also learning about the paper work that is involved with these cases. It's very interesting to see how some of the things that I learned from my environmental policy class can be in the real world. That's all I have for now.