Tim Dishman, ANR

I have spent the previous two weeks with Glenn Roberts in Wayne County, KY. I am interning with my home extension office and have really enjoyed my time spent here. Even though it has only been two weeks, these people have become a small family to me. I have also learned a lot in these past two weeks. Glenn and I are working the some of the farmers in the county to study boron deficiency in corn. While research has been done already at UK, none of the aforementioned research has been done here in our home county. We know that vegetables in our area are deficient of boron because of some soil and tissue tests that have been conducted but we have reason to believe that corn in our area also suffers from this. We sprayed six test plots which were being conducted from six and eigth row head combines. The plots are measured off in 68 feet increments for six row heads and 91 feet increments for eight row head combines. Each set of measurements were done in sets of eight. Some of the test plots recieved zero boron for our control group, this was two sets of 68 or 91 feet in the area. Some of the test plots recieved one pound of boron per acre, there was four of these in each of the area plots. And finally, some of the test plots recieved two pounds of boron per acre, two in each of the area plots. We administered the boron over the top of the corn plants with a Gator and a 60 inch boom sprayer. Each segment of the plot took approximately 20 seconds to drive across, driving three miles per hour. We took a soil test in each eight sections of the six different test plots, before the boron was added. At the end of the growing season, the corn will be harvested individually in each section of each of these plots and the contents will be weighed in a  buggy before going into the grain truck. We test how many bushels per acre, or  if any bushels per acre were added to the corn yield. Each of the eight sections of the six different plots will be soil tested again after the corn is taken from the field. We will then compare the differences in the soil from before and after the boron was added. We will also compare to tests of non-boron added plots of the same size and location from last year. Also at the office this week, I have made approximately seven farm visits throughout the county trying to promote the cooperative extension service.  We would go and talk to the different farmers and families and inform them of programs that are coming up and how the programs would help them out. I have also gotten the opportunity to work with the 4-H program. I have been grading papers from a health program that the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders completed throughout 6 weeks during the semester. They were required to do various excercises and had to write down and keep track of how many were done in 30, 45, and 60 second intervals. Then, the 1st week and the last week were tallied and the students were scored based on their performance. I have been doing this in my "free time" between spraying corn and farm visits and am still working on getting the papers done. I have had a very good time at the extension office this week and have learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people and made some friends already. Looking forward to the next ten weeks.