Hey everyone, this is Brad Hagan, the intern from Daviess County. The past 2 plus weeks have been spent mostly out of the office, and out of the county. Since my last post I have had the opportunity to attend a GOAP meeting, 4-H camp, and the KACAA meeting. I have also have attended a horticultural training in the Daviess County office. Since there is a lot to cover I will just go in the order each of these events took place.
First I attended the Horticulture training here at the office. This provided a lot of insight as to what to look for with plant pathogens and great techniques to zoom in on these diseases. A couple of specialists from the lab at Princeton came and both gave different hour long courses on what the plant pathogens were, and how you can determine the type of pathogen. The class also showed us some new technologies that can be attached to an I-Phone or I-Pad to increase zooming capabilities. With these technologies specialists can simply receive a text or email on the magnified picture of the problem. The class was very interesting and helpful.
The day after the Horticulture training, Clint and I drove up to Frankfort to attend a Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy (GOAP) meeting. I came into the meeting knowing very little about GOAP. I was very appreciative to sit in on a meeting that had such an impact on Kentucky Farmers. It was an awesome experience listening to the County Agents and GOAP staff work together to try to improve an already great program. Though I came into the meeting knowing very little, I left with a lot more insight on what GOAP is, and what it is used for. Eating lunch at the Governor’s Mansion was also an awesome experience I won’t forget.
The following week I went to 4-H camp. I was actually nervous about attending camp due to my lack of experience working with children. However camp ended up being fine and an interesting experience (it also didn’t hurt having a great group of kids and a 20 year state trooper veteran in the same cabin). As far as the daily classes went, they did not have me volunteer for one specific class; instead, I bounced around taking pictures and being the water boy. Towards the end of the week I was beginning to be known as “Bobby Boucher,” from the classic movie The Waterboy. I enjoyed my role as the water boy and photographer because I was able to stay active and get to see everything the camp has to offer to the kids.
Next on the list is the KACAA meeting. This meeting was in Covington Kentucky and took place 6/30-7/3. On Monday everyone in the meeting were split up into 4 groups: Livestock, Pasture and Grain Crops, Marketing, and Horticulture. Each group had about an hour to come up with the top 5 concerns with each group in Kentucky. Each group had to state what was being done right now on each issue, what is not being done with each issue and what should be done with each issue. These issues where then discussed with Scott Smith, the Dean of UK College of Agriculture, Gary Palmer, the assistant director for ANR, and Jimmy Henning, the Associate Dean for Extension and Director of the Cooperative Extension Service. The next day we split up into different county tours. My tour went to Campbell County where we viewed a few farms and even a Winery. Later that night we went to the Cincinnati Reds versus the Giants baseball game.
Short note on the irrigation project: tissue and soil sample results have been coming into the office. This week I will be working on sending them out to farmers. Lauren Settles made my weekly farm observations for me while I was away at 4-H camp. Conditions in the county have been so wet, there has been no need for irrigation. Weekly observations have still been made on rainfall, humidity, temperature, growth stage, and wind speed. Later this week, more tissue samples will be taken to compare any growth difference between our nitrogen rich areas and areas with normal rates of nitrogen. All of our data collected with be supplied to farmers and an irrigation management guideline will be compiled.
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