Hey there everyone!

My name is Sarah Letsinger and this is my second year here at Purdue. Even though I am only in my third semester, my goal is to be able to graduate within three years. I am studying agronomy with a concentration in crop and soil management and a minor in horticulture.  I grew up on a grain farm in Tipton Indiana (which is about an hour north of Indianapolis). I am proud to say that our farm has been in the family for over a hundred years!

Over the summer I worked as a field scout intern for Crop Production Services. I was located in Arcadia, Indiana which is in Hamilton County. It was a great hands on experience where I learned much about crops, diseases, and insects. I was able to have weekly meetings with the other Northern Division interns, most of who are Purdue students. It is awesome to come back to school and be able to recognize another face among the many here on campus. One of the main reasons I was employed by CPS was because I attended the College of Agriculture Career Fair. The career fair is an amazing opportunity that should not be missed by any! It gives you an opportunity to network with many industry professionals and helps to build your confidence and reputation. In addition to working I was also able to take some time off to help my brother during the Tipton County 4-H Fair, visit the Indiana State Fair and also take a vacation to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. Even though working is a great way to gain real world experience as well as earn money for college, taking time to enjoy the summer with friends and family is very important!   

For those of you who are interested in everything agriculture you have come to the right place! Purdue has an esteemed reputation as an Ag school and for many reasons. The professors, faculty, and staff are amazing! They will take the time out of their day to discuss courses, careers, and about life in general. There are many different clubs and organizations, so there is no reason for anyone to feel like they can’t fit in somewhere! In addition to being an Agronomy Ambassador, I am the president of Soil and Water Conservation Society, a member of the Purdue Soils Team, the Agronomy Club, and Purdue Quality Deer Management Association. During your years at Purdue you will be getting a well-rounded education while at the same time meeting people that are just as passionate about agriculture as you are. If you come to Purdue (which I hope that all of you do!) don’t ever be afraid to change your mind about your major or your career path. College is where you can find yourself and figure out where life will take you, or at least in the general direction!

Boiler Up!  

First Ag Ambassador Blog

                                         Hi everyone my name is Gina Zaccagnini and I am a sophomore here at Purdue studying Natural Resources and Environmental Science. I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania... (yes, I am a huge Steelers/Pirates/Penguins fan), and I plan on graduating from this incredible university in May of 2018! Here at Purdue, I am involved in several different clubs/organizations such as being an Ambassador for the College of Agriculture,Team Leader position for Boiler Gold Rush, member of the University Choir with Purdue Musical Organizations, and many more! I was pretty busy over the summer between working two jobs, taking some summer classes, and ultimately being able to be with family and friends whom I did not get to see very much throughout the school year. However, I was able to go on a much needed vacation to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with my family, on top of attending two family reunions for both my dad and mom's sides. In addition, I went to many concerts with some of my closest friends, such as, my favorite...Luke Bryan, as well as Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift. I had to come back to campus earlier than usual because I had the amazing opportunity to be a Team Leader for the freshmen orientation program here at Purdue, known as Boiler Gold Rush, and that took place a week before classes started for the semester. All in all, after a great summer, I am extremely excited and happy to be back at Purdue to take on another year.
                                      For those who are looking to attend Purdue in the coming future, all I can say is that you are making a fantastic decision by choosing this impeccable institution. Yes, this university will challenge you in every way possible; however, it also makes you into an independent, responsible, and successful adult. Some advice that I would like to give to these prospective students is that this college offers anything and everything. From internships, to study abroad opportunities, to being able to decide on what club, out of 900 clubs on campus, would you want to be a part of during your years here, Purdue has it all. If you have questions about anything, there is always a faculty member or even any upper classmen who would love to help you in any way, shape, or form. Every student here at Purdue takes pride in the fact that we have the incredible opportunity to attend such a prestigious, well-known university. Do not be afraid to put yourself out there and achieve your goals!

After Graduation Plans

Hi Everybody,

     I graduated this past May from Purdue with an agronomy major. Now that I am officially "grown up," I can tell you I am doing just what I wanted to do as a child "when I grow up". I will be working for John Deere Corporate and graduating from Purdue has greatly helped me fulfill my childhood dream of working with John Deere tractors everyday.
     Last summer, I was blessed to receive an internship with John Deere's marketing department. I was based out of Ottumwa, Iowa but travelled around the southern and western part of U.S. with a prototype baler. Through the different states during the summer I talked to many farmers trying to get their opinion of this specific baler and how they thought it compared to other balers. It was an absolute blast and made the summer fly by. Following my internship I was offered a full time job with them.
     In the middle of July, I will begin my 15 month training period with John Deere Corporate in the marketing department. Morrisville, a suburb of Raliegh, North Carolina will be my new home for the next six months. After that I will relocate to Orlando, Florida for a short period of time and then will complete the rest of my training at another Corportate location across the U.S.  For my first set of training I will be working with small ag equipment, such as lawn and garden tractors. I will learn about this equipment and experience what a role in dealer development would be. As of now, this is where I would like to end up after training, in dealer development, so I am very excited to start of learning about this role. Those involved in dealer development are the liaison between corporate John Deere and the sales branches. They teach the dealers and salespeople about the equipment and how they can understand the machine to sell it.
    Now that I am a month away from beginning this new chapter in my life, I will take a short moment to reflect on all that Purdue has given me. Attending this world renowned university has been an awesome experience from being taught by well known professors to just making friends of lifetime. The education I have received let me learn about what I was interested in and fueled my passion of agriculture. I was blessed to receive awesome summer internships due to the education, leadership, and personal development I receieved as a student which has then opened the door for a lifelong career. My time at Purdue can never be forgotten and I wish each of the incoming freshman for the upcoming year, to never underestimate what influences being a Boilermaker can have on your life.

Best,

Kole Kamman
Class of 2015
Purdue Agronomy

Farmer 5k

Hi Everyone!

The week of April 12-17th is Ag Week at Purdue. During the week there are many different events for the entire campus to participate it. Many of the events are aimed to inform others about agriculture and then there are also quite a few that are community service centered.

To kick it off on Sunday there was a "Farmer 5k" hosted by Purdue Collegiate FFA. Myself and a fellow ambassador, Kole Kamman signed up for the challenge. The two of us along with about 60 other people ran or walked the course and learned about agriculture with interesting facts at each turn of the course. All participants are encouraged to dress up to the theme "Farmer 5k" and to enter in the theme wear contest. This year there were some very creative farm animal costumes!

All proceeds of this race went to Food Finders Twin Lakes Student Food Pantry. Not only was this a fun event to compete in but it was also a good cause! The race raised $720 for the organization that will be put towards supplying food insecure families with food.

It is hard to believe there are only three more weeks until summer break!    
Until next time..Kathryn Graf

Undergraduate Sorghum Research

Hello, again! The Spring semester is coming to an end, and summer is approaching! I will be working as a Production Research Intern at DowAgrosciences this summer, so stay tuned for a post regarding my internship. In the meantime, I'd like to give some insight into the opportunities for undergraduate research at Purdue University, and within the Agronomy Department specifically. 

Beginning last fall, I became an undergraduate researcher in the Weil Lab working with mutant sorghum and looking at the possible genetics causes of increased digestibility levels in mutant lines. I’ve been working on the project with another Plant Genetics undergraduate, we have made steady progress on the project. 

Sorghum is a drought-resistant, heat-tolerant cereal crop important to food production in regions of sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. Sorghum is consumed in these areas in the form of porridges and fermented breads, like injera pictured below. Unlike corn, wheat, rice and other grains, sorghum has a very low rate of protein digestibility when cooked. Findings ways to improve and increase this protein digestibility has potential to improve the nutritional qualities of this important African food crop! The project that I’m working on aims at doing just this. Some mutant sorghum lines developed in the 1970s at Purdue University showed increased levels of protein digestibility compared to other commonly used cultivars. 

Above: Sorghum grain growing in the field. The head of the stalk contains the edible sorghum grain, which is the portion of the plant low in protein digestibility.

Below: Injera is a fermented sorghum bread eaten in regions of Eastern Africa. The fermentation process contributes to the increasing digestibility levels and is a means for managing the nutritional qualities with chemistry in preparing the food.

This project has been a great opportunity to understand a new crop that I hadn’t previously worked with, as well as to better understand the genetic tools used to identify mechanisms responsible for desirable agronomic traits. It's also been a great experience for building my network with other undergraduate researchers, graduate students, and faculty!

Below: In the lab, we screen for seeds with high protein digestibility by digesting the sorghum with pepsin in order to imitate human consumption and digestion. We then measure the levels of protein remaining to determine which samples had the highest digestibility levels, and can use them in later breeding projects to introduce increased digestibility properties.

This upcoming fall, a paper describing this research progress and findings--authored by myself, Hailey Edmondson, and Michael Busche, will be published in the 2015 Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research, so keep your eyes open if you want to read more!

Looking in the Rearview Mirror

Hi friends,

The spring semester is flying by and I am only a few short weeks away from graduation. The last month and a half has been very busy for me with graduate school visits, capstone project presentations, exams, extracurricular events, and a much needed spring break trip to the Smoky Mountains. I do know where I am going for graduate school now but since the paperwork isn't all finished I am going to keep it a surprise for my final post, so stay tuned! I thought I would take this opportunity to provide a personal testimony for any students who can't make it for a visit to Purdue. Hopefully by sharing my experiences and thoughts on Purdue Agronomy and Agriculture, any prospective students out there can have a better sense for what it would be like to be a student in our department.

Academic excellence

I truly feel that I have received world class education at Purdue, which is really the first objective of anyone going to college. I have been taught by award winning faculty, including a World Food Prize winner, who genuinely care about the success and learning of students. These professors know my name and still greet me as I walk down the Agronomy or Botany hallway. I have been challenged in my coursework and have been able to simultaneously quench my thirst for knowledge and discover new academic passions. Good grades at Purdue do not come easily and I have worked hard to get to where I am today in terms of grades. I have been afforded the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research which has enhanced many skills I learned in the classroom or lab. I have learned about the inner workings of the scientific community and presented my research. I have made mistakes. Lots of them. However, I have had the support system to help me learn from those mistakes so I do not repeat them. My agronomy classes in particular have always been enjoyable and very interesting; I know I chose the right major because studying for agronomy exams never seems like work.  I know that I am well prepared for the next step of graduate school with a Purdue Agronomy degree.

Professional development

Looking back to when I was a freshman, I would never have imagined the involvements and opportunities I have had in the College of Agriculture and Agronomy Department. I have had three internships with three different companies and through career fairs, speakers, and ambassador events, I have connections all over the agriculture industry. I learned that I really enjoy networking events and meeting people; coupled with my involvement in extracurricular organizations on campus, I have found a love of leadership and a desire to make an impact. I wanted to be a departmental and college ambassador not because it looked good on my resume, but because I genuinely wanted to help other students find their niche and have a phenomenal collegiate experience like I have had. I want to be an inspiration to my peers so that they may go on to do great things for their own personal fulfillment and the betterment of the world. My leadership and professional development journeys have not always been smooth, but I have again learned from my mistakes.Through the mentorship of many outstanding individuals I have grown into a scientist, agriculture advocate, and leader. Agronomy Club in particular gave me a great jumpstart as a freshman. I was able to meet lots of students in the department, go to the national SASES conference, and take on responsibility for the business side of the club. Meeting agronomy alumni at recruiting events has added to my network.

Relationships

My experience as an agronomy student has been outstanding solely considering the academics and professional development opportunities. What has really made my four years at Purdue something I will forever cherish are the people and relationships I have built. No place is this more evident than in the Agronomy Department and College of Agriculture. The people in this department care about each individual and make you feel like you are a part of a family. The people whom I have worked with are genuine, friendly, and of excellent character. I am proud to be associated with them. I have formed relationships in my lab, with my professors, my club advisors, and in my classes that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life. I don't think students at other institutions have quite the same experience as Purdue Ag students, and I know that it is not just me that feels this way. For the people I have had the privilege of learning from, the people whom I am honored to call my friends and mentors, and for the people who brought me to the College of Agriculture and the Agronomy Department at Purdue University, I am ever grateful, ever true. 

Daniel Sweeney, Senior- Plant Genetics, Breeding, and Biotechnology

Study Abroad Australia!

Veronica in Queenstown, New Zealand.

G'day to all my fell bloggers,

This semester I applied and was accepted to study abroad in tropical Townsville, Australia at James Cook University. I am currently a 2nd year student in the Purdue University Agronomy department. I am majoring in Natural Resource and Environmental Science and currently working on picking up a Wildlife minor.

New Zealand landscape. 

Choosing to study abroad has been on of the best decisions that I have ever made. Being abroad has taught me more about myself then I could have even imagined. I have became more independent, capitalized on my strengths, improved my weaknesses, became a better communicator, learned to step out of my comfort zone, and so much more!

I left the USA on January 9th with a fellow Purdue mate to travel early before starting my semester at James Cook University (JCU). I spent two weeks traveling in New Zealand on a Contiki tour before starting my Aussie adventures. New Zealand was incredible. I took part in some crazy activities including bungy jumping, skydiving, jet boat riding, horseback riding, and mountain climbing. I made so many unforgettable memories and friendships in the matter on a few days!

When in Frans Josef, NZ I took a helicopter to the
top of a glacier where I went hiking. 

134m Nevis Bungy Jump in Queenstown, NZ.

After leaving NZ, I began my travels down under. I stated off in Sydney were I did the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb and stayed at a hostel on Bondi Beach for Australia Day (like the American 4th of July) before taking a 12hr train ride to Melbourne. After spending 6 nights in Melbourne, I took a 9hr bus ride to Canberra to stay with my new friend Stephaine that I meet in New Zealand and here family. Canberra is the capital city of Australia, and Steph and her family gave me a grand tour of the nations capitol.

Australian Parliament House with Stephanie and her father in Canberra. 

Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb wit fellow Purdue travel partner.

Stephaine and I took a two day road trip to the Snowy Mountains were I got to live out my dream of riding horses in the "Man from Snow River" country. This was truly and incredible experience. I then flew out of Canberra and into Townsville to where I would be stating "uni" on February 23rd, as the Aussies call it.

Riding horses in the Snowy Mountains.

My first week in Townsville was a blast. I did the new student orientation program where I got to know the campus and my fellow students. I am taking four courses at JCU: Wildlife Ecology Management, Australian Landscape and Processes, Conserving Marine Wildlife: Mammals, Sea, Birds, and Reptiles, and Tourism and the Environment.  JCU has an incredible library that I am taking full advantage of it for my research.


I am really enjoying my classes and it actually feels nice to get back into the swing of school again. My classes are all extremely interesting and involve a lot of fieldwork and practical experience. All of my courses but one have field trip off campus for further study and fieldwork. For my Wildlife and Ecology Management course I will be going a cattle station in central Queensland on mid semester break to run field test on the impacts of wildlife and invasive species on different pastures at the station.

On the weekends I go over to Magnetic Island where I work at Horseshoe Bay Ranch as a trail guide/ranch hand.

Swimming horses in the ocean at Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island.

I cannot wait to see what the rest of the semester has in store for me!

Until next time.

Cheers,

Veronica Yager