Research in Agriculture

Hi everyone! My name is Macy Grove, and I am a current Senior student at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus. I am studying Agbusiness Management with minors in Horticulture and International Agriculture. I wanted to take a moment to highlight the research side of agriculture, as I have had the opportunity to get involved both on and off main campus. My internship last summer was one of those wonderful opportunities. I worked at an extension center of Penn State called the Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center. This is an extension center dedicated to agricultural research that takes interns each summer. There are different sectors of research that they focused on, but I focused on their horticultural research. In that, there were both tomato studies and pumpkin studies. The tomato studies had two parts: a field study and a high tunnel study. The high tunnel study had grafted tomato varieties meaning that the plants had root stalks of a different variety attached. The field, on the other hand, had new varieties of tomato plants sent not only from Penn State but also other researchers. I learned more than I could have ever imagined doing this study. I learned about the research process, the growing process, the data entry process, and so on for both studies. The growing process included learning about how to mix fertilizer, how to run an irrigation system on a timer, how to implement an irrigation system, how to tie the plants correctly, how to stake the plants, how to check soil moisture, how to check water pH, how to look for disease and pests (scouting), and more. The research process included learning about the plant's biomass (some got to 10ft tall in the high tunnel!!) and how to "grade" the ripe tomatoes based on look: redness, cracking, damage, size, weight. The research process included taking down all the data collected and inputting it on tables and charts that would be used to create the final reports.

While this was my main focus over the summer, I also helped to start the pumpkin study at the end of the summer as well as got the chance to look at the other projects, help with events on site, and show guests the facility. The pumpkin study consisted of hand planting and irrigating a variety of pumpkin seeds treated with different chemicals to prevent disease or pests. Our goal was to create a wall of foliage as soon as they grew to encourage disease to see how they resisted against it. The other projects I got to look at were the flower study's, bug collection study, and soybean and corn studies. Fun fact: growers and companies from all over the world send their seeds here to be planted and tested for quality assurance! I even saw some from places like Japan. Finally, getting to work on other tasks for my personal development was key in this internship. I learned how to work machinery like a tractor and woods mower, a zero-turn lawn mower, a weedwhacker, and a skid steer. I learned how to effectively communicate about research and our findings. Finally, I learned how to help host events for industry professionals.

Luckily, this job transitioned from the research farm to an on-campus position. I now work in the Dr. Paul Esker Plant Pathology Research Laboratory. Here, I get to work less in the field, and more in the lab setting looking at plant diseases. I process seed samples by grinding and counting them. I get to practice PCR and qPCR on DNA samples. I get to take subsamples of fungus being grown in our incubators. I have learned how to use laboratory equipment like a centrifuge, an autoclave, and pipettes. You will see more in the photos below! Overall, even as a business major, taking all of these opportunities to research agriculture through Penn State has given me quite the scope and experience I have always searched for. I could not recommend research more!!