All posts by peiyuann

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lecture about Irrigation system

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In the class,  guest speaker James Adkins,  works at the UD research farm, had talked about the development of irrigation system.  Water is an essential part of farming. In the past, irrigation systems were not developed well, so they may wast water and cost more for a long term. Over time, the irrigation system has been improved.  It not only save the water resource and prevent pest and disease problem.  it does good and efficient work.  There are some areas are lack of water resource, like California. Advanced irrigation system gives a big help! The soil quality could tell how much water needed. after this lecture, i understand how important the combination of water and soil. and how important the soil and water mean to farmland.

 

 

Ag Business

guest lecture about the Horse Industry

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Before Mark Davis talked about the Horse Racing Industry, the word “gambling” comes to my mind. After learning from his lecture I started to realize the good side of house gambling game.  House gambling game was held to help the housing industry. In the past, the housing industry was poor and had no money to run their business. If there is no house game, there will not be house industry.  House industry has been working so hard on house race. They set very strict rules for competitors. They are the main moneymaker for the of the local market. However, It is enjoyable to watch the house race. It is one of necessary entertainment event for people especially wealthy people to spend time.  

Video

Guest lecture about social media

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I have not had a formal lecture to learn about social media. This lecture is unique for me because i have learn so many useful knowledge about social media for my daily life. She mentioned never use your real name for your informal social media because it may affect the application of a job. It is the first time to know companies may search your name online to check what kind of person you are. In people’s private life, they are relaxed so they may post what they did not think overhead in their social media. Many people do not pay attention to it. Now I know it is important to pay attention to. what is more, she helps me to understand the necessity of having a formal and clean (same theme) page on social media. It would help me to show company about myself and it is also a self-learning process.

 

Ag Business, Poultry

Guest Lecture from Georgie Cartanza

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Before went to Georgie Cartanza’s poultry farm,  we had a lecture from her about the development of poultry farm and what kinds of misunderstanding from the public.  Poultry farm was started casually.  There were hundreds of eggs that had no place to go. A lady took them and grow them to chicken, then sold chicken meat. The chicken was sold out quickly and poultry house started.

 Since the chicken is growing bigger and bigger, people may think poultry industry is using hormones and steroid. but the answer is not. What has really lead to the growth in the size of the chicken is they pick out the stronger and healthier birds and feed them good nutrition, and provide nice housing condition.

there is one more interesting fact to know: poultry company and grower work together to produce chickens. The company provides chicks, feed, propane, litter, health supplies, tech service. Grower provides equipment housing, labor, electric, overhead. Georgie Cartanza’s poultry farm is taking the role of the grower.

 

 

 

Ag Business, Livestock

Poultry farm

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The First exciting trip is to visit Georgie Cartanza’s organic poultry farm.  After listening to Georgie’s quick presentation, we got an idea of how to manage a poultry farm. We were lucky to get a chance to walk into the chicken house to see their living environment. We were given clean cloth and protective gear to wear outside of our own cloth. There is also a cleaning box for us to step on to clean our sole. It can tell us a message that they really love their chickens and chickens are protected well by workers on the farm. I kind of get an idea of where our chicken comes from and how they are taking care of.  Chickens are free ranged and given plenty of food and water. I want to say thank you to all the workers in the poultry farm, thanks for providing healthy and nice chicken to us.

Ag Business, Agriculture in the News

Mark Lynas video

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what is GMO? this doubt must exist in many people’s head. I had it in my mind too before I watch this video. People are really careful about what they are eating nowadays. If you they are not sure about the certain part, like GMO food, they will keep their old pattern instead of trying new food material. Mark Lynas did not believe the GMO before he did research about it. He spends a lot of time to prove one of the biggest concern in the world. so he makes people believe how good GMO food is and he did contribute a lot to the agriculture. We need people like him to stand out to tell the public what is right or wrong. what is GMO? GMO is the genetically modified organism. Since the earth is changing due to the human activities, new plants are designed by humans to adapt the new environment, which helps us to solve food insecure problem.

Ag Business

Is Food Labeling important?

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Since more people are been educated about food, the food labeling has been becoming very important in nowadays. Food labeling tells what is been added to the food, what nutritional values it contains, and the number of amounts of ingredients being added. It is a very good tool to show people who want to track their nutrition intake. there are some advantages as following: providing consumers information on food to give their chance to choose their ideal food comparing those similar products; avoiding food hypersensitivity;  helping people eat more healthier which can reduce the cost of healthcare. Everything has two sides,  so there is some disadvantage too: due to some selfish market strategies by showing wrong labeling, it can mislead customers in a wrong direction; so many alternative products means so many food labels need to read, which can be one of the reasons to cause decidophobia. It may make people overwhelmed;  so we need always keep critical in mind to make the right decision for our own health.

 

 

Ag Business, Field Trips-Tours, Poultry

UD farm

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On Saturday, last field trip was in UD farm. Scott Hopkins gave us a tour of the UD farm! There are crop fields, livestock industry, greenhouses, and wetland creation site.
We went to visited dairy cows and young dairy cows first. There are milking room, feeding room, and young dairy cow living area. Scott Hopkins did a brief introduction about how milking and feeding progress. The cows were trained to eat in their own food box, which surprised me a lot.

That way is much easier to check how much they eat and their health situation. Milking room is very clean, which is very important for a livestock industry. There is an anti-bacterial spray in the middle of the milking room for workers use. There are much more cows than what I thought.
In the young cows living area, everyone has their own house and berries around the door of the house to avoid they come out. Those cows just like big dogs. They are very friendly and nice to people. They just like a puppy, like to put everything into their mouth. What a puppy do is chew, but they like suck.


What is more,  I think the wetland site is a very peaceful area for people to walk through. It enjoyed this trip a lot!

Ag Business

New High-Technology for Agriculture

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If you want to understand how agriculture works today, you need to learn about the technologies they are using. Where we go for this trip is Hoober company, they have all kinds of equipment using for agriculture, the variety of tractors, combines, drone, sprayers. Humans create technology and somehow they rely on it because technology brings much convenient and easy life for us. Since some of the farmlands are huge, drones give a big help. They can fly all over farm fields. Instead of walking through the field and check in person, we can check the health of crops through the phone. The most impressive tractor in my mind is the one with the sprayer on both sides. The sprayers are birds’ wings set on both sides of the tractor. These tractors are huge and modern looking.  The Tractors can be set for an automatic drive. Very easy for us to use. Each of them cost 100,000 dollars, which is a lot of money to invest. However, it may save money for farmers for rest of life, since there will be fewer labors and time are required.

Ag Business, Farmers Markets, Field Trips-Tours, Fruits

Fifer Orchards farm

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At September twenty-third, 2017, we went to the Fifer Orchards farm, which is located in Camden Wyoming, DE, one hour drive from the University of Delaware. It is a family farm and the fourth generation. What is more, It is the season of apples and pumpkins. We went to the apple picking area where tourist also can go to pick up apples by themselves.  The field, next to it, is a huge area of the strawberry field. In the past, I thought the way to water them is rotating sprinklers on pipes. What I saw in the field is drip irrigation. Pipes are put inside of the soil and the soil is covered by black plastic materials. Drip irrigation is a slow process to provide water and fertilizer to plant roots. Because it is on the inside of the soil, it does well on keeping the perfect moisture and keeping the plant surface dry which saves water resource and reduces disease and pest problems.

Since they plant the variety of vegetable and fruit in different time of the seasons, there must be a most profitable one, which is the sweet corn. When we think about farm markets, we may think there may be a competition between the weekly farmer markets located across the state and the Fifer Orchards farm, but the fact is the Fifer Orchards farm sell products to them. In the end, we arrived their market shopping area. All kinds of delicious apples and pretty pumpkins. I am really glad I got the chance to visit here with my professors and classmates.