Ivy Leaf Morning Glory with herbicide symptoms

Greetings from Ithaca! My name is Danilo Pivaral. I am going to be a senior agricultural sciences major. Although I grew up in Chicago, I have wanted to contribute to the food supply chain that fails many neighborhoods, by studying agriculture. This summer I am an intern in the Weed Ecology and Management lab at Cornell. As part of the lab I work on a couple different projects such as, the perennials project, seedling emergence, and drought experiment. My interest in sustainability led me to the perennial grain project, growing intermediate wheatgrass and rye. In the past five weeks I have helped pull weeds at the Musgrave Research farm and fields in Newfield and Ovid. The weeds we have mostly targeted are wild mustard and hairy vetch. These were controlled to prevent them from pollinating and reseeding for next year. Pulling the vetch was very satisfying and had to be put in bags and dumped away from the field because vetch seed continues to form even when pulled. The satisfaction came from freeing up a cluster of Kernza by pulling out a vetch from stem closest to the ground. Although weeds are an issue to farmers, they can be appreciated for their beauty and resilience to cultivation and herbicides.

My experience as a home gardener has been limited to hand weeding. Though it is fun spending time outside weeding, herbicide application seems like an adaptable technology. This Internship will help me prepare for the weeds class in the fall and help me find a career in agriculture. By learning about how weeds are controlled in different fields, I will have another cultivation tool under my belt.