During week 5, we got to take a whole day to spend in the fields! The first place we went was to a potato field where we talked with some farmers who were having problems with their field. One of the things that is great about this internship is seeing how the research is being used in real world applications. Being able to meet the farmers and listen to them and the researchers communicate is really neat.
Next, we visited two different peppermint fields. In these fields, we counted the number of plants that were infected with verticillium wilt.
The fields were both about 35 acres.
We divided each field into four sections and then walked six diagonal lines in each section to most accurately view and see all the plants.
The mint fields looked innocent from the outside but were actually quite jungle-like once we got moving through them. In some places the plants were knee high; in others, waist high!
Everything smelled very minty fresh. My shoes smelled like peppermint for at least a week afterwards.
At first, identifying the plants with verticillium wilt seemed like trying to find a needle in a haystack! There was so much mint to look through.
After a while, identification got easier. The plants with verticillium wilt were often crunchy and crispy looking like this…
Yellowed leaves were also a giveaway.
In addition to yellow, the plants also had a purple hue on the leaves.
Some of the transects had barely any verticillium wilt and others had quite a bit.
Some just had a lot of ladybugs.
Soil samples had previously been taken from these same fields so the next step will be to look at how those match up with the number of affected plants in each transect.
Peppermint fields forever!
