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| Intern visit to Dow AgroSciences Headquarters |
Hey everyone! Fall is
officially here, and I can’t believe we have already entered the sixth week of
school. Looking back a few months, I
can’t help but miss summer and all the awesome people I met and things I
learned.
From May
through August, I worked as a Corn Breeding Intern for Dow AgroSciences in
Fowler, IN. The Fowler location is
devoted to corn research, so I learned a lot about basic crop production and
specific breeding methods. It was very interesting
being able to apply things that I had learned about in my previous classes to
what actually goes on in a breeding research field. Throughout the summer, I helped collect yield
data, organized and prepared seed for planting, and managed a pollination
crew. I even had the opportunity to look
at plots in Ohio and Michigan-
both which were extremely fun trips. |
| Ryan was very excited to pull volunteer corn |
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| Emily made my birthday fantastic! |
Along the
way, I also met some pretty incredible people.
Two people I got really close to this summer were Emily and Ryan. Emily is a Benton County native, who is going
to school for special education at Indiana Wesleyan. Her role at Dow AgroSciences was being the
Safety Manager, and she definitely did a fantastic job making sure none of us
got dehydrated in the fields and bandaged up my fingers whenever they got cut. She’s probably one of the sweetest people I
have ever met, and has great taste in music.
Ryan is a biochemistry major at Purdue who is really interested in
herbicide research. He is very laid back
and was good sport working in a field group of all girls. Being away from my friends this summer, I
wasn’t quite sure how I was going to celebrate my birthday, but Emily and Ryan
made it such a fantastic night, and my summer seriously would not have been the
same without all the awesome memories we made together.
I can’t go
without mentioning how friendly and awesome the full-time employees were. They were extremely willing to teach us
essentially all that we wanted to learn a Several times, they would sit us all down in
the conference room and give presentations on plant breeding concepts and the
history of maize. Having this additional
educational aspect to the internship really enhanced our understanding of why
we did things the way we did in the fields and how truly important and exciting
the research is that goes behind developing new lines. Juan, the corn breeder, taught me a lot this
summer about the different characteristics selected for in male and female corn
lines, and he even helped me start a research project based on QTL’s related
pollen production in male lines.
bout plant breeding.
Reflecting
on what a great summer I had this year makes me excited to see what’s in store
for me next summer… but I also have the rest of my junior year to look forward
to in the meantime.
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