SOAR-REEU
student blog

I’ve spent the summer working on a few different projects that I’m super excited to share with you all. 

Most of my time has been spent working with my mentor, Alex Crum, as well as my PIs, Natalie Hoidal and Dr. Ya Yang, on a research project focused on identifying Hmong herbs. The Twin Cities are home to the third largest Hmong population in the country, and as you may remember from our trip to the HAFA Farm, medicinal herbs play a very important role in Hmong culture. One particularly important use of these herbs is in the postpartum diet– for thirty days after giving birth, Hmong women follow a strict diet of herbed chicken soup in order to speed up recovery and prevent injury. Despite the large Hmong community in the region, liability issues prevent Twin Cities hospitals from providing this traditional soup to their patients, largely because of a lack of a known Latin name to connect these plants to bodies of scientific literature. My project is focused on using DNA barcoding to extract DNA from Hmong herbs kindly provided to us by the Lee family, who are farmers in the area, as well as herbs sourced from Hmong markets in St. Paul. We’ve extracted, purified, sequenced, and aligned all of our samples (yay!), and are now working on creating a literature review for all of the potential species matches we found in our search. We hope that once a connection to existing research is established, hospitals will begin providing these herbs to their patients. 

On a completely different note, last week Natalie Hoidal and I spread the soil science gospel to two of my favorite demographics to work with– small farmers and middle schoolers! At the UMN Extension Farmer Field Day, I got to share some simple soil health tests with beginning farmers and connect not only with other people working at the University, but with local farmers hailing from all over the world. I also had the opportunity to try east African greens being cultivated by a program at the University, including one called bitterleaf, which definitely held up to its name! On Thursday, we traveled to Rochester, MN to a community farm called The Village Agricultural Cooperative to teach a summer camp about the importance of soil health. Hearing kids get excited about soil and gardening was amazing, even if a lot of the questions concerned whether or not they could eat the dirt. 

I’m so grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had to learn about so many different topics over the course of this program. As the summer comes to an end, I’m excited to go home to family and friends, but will definitely miss the community I’ve found here.

Hello hello! Can we just take a second to acknowledge that we are now officially in the middle of this summer adventure! I hope everyone has learned as much as possible and enjoyed their time here. 

This past week I spent my time in the Grossman lab weighing out soils. The week prior to that, Gaby and I visited Big River Farms and took over 20 samples that ranged from cover-cropped areas to onions fields. These samples are currently being put through a series of quantitative and qualitative tests. The results are going to be used to find correlations between these tests, results from the soil testing facilities on campus, and the methodology of our focus, the Paper Circular Chromatography (PCC) test. This is a qualitative test that through the development of patterns and colors on filter paper gives us an indication of physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of a soil sample. Our objective is to validate what we think these visual indications mean and if they are consistent. Later, we aim to present this technique to a group of farmers to determine their willingness to adopt this practice as part of yearly soils health monitoring efforts. This test presents particularly beautiful lab results with rings that may indicate organic matter content and compaction levels, and colors that might indicate overall soil health. 

Besides from the PCC test, I have had the opportunity to assist in the watering of alfalfa plants. They are being treated with different inoculants in hopes of determining which can facilitate growth and nodulation better. I don’t know too much about the progress of this experiment but the plants are looking great, “too great” as Ph.D. student Rebbeca Fudge put it. 

Thank you for reading and have a great rest of your day and time here at the U!

Hola everyone, my name is Loren S. De Jesús. This summer I am helping my mentor, Ryan Schwab, on the Long-Term Ecological Research project (LTER), which consists of lawn assessments on private residences around the Twin Cities, some of which are reported as bee lawns. The goal is to collect data at each site, which include the types of lawn species, soil moisture levels, and soil sampling to see if they have a relationship with bumble bee abundance and richness. We have also used a light box to take candid photos of lawn areas of interest. The LTER project will further our understanding of lawn species across the Twin Cities and how they may impact the presence of pollinators as well as identify spatial or demographic inequities of pollinator services. 

In an unrelated project focused on precision irrigation, we used a chlorophyll fluorometer to measure parameters of turfgrass moisture stress, such as light absorption and photochemical efficiency via chlorophyll fluorescence. The results of this project will help inform turfgrass professionals’ strategies to conserve water. 

As for my research, I will be looking into the plant species richness of private residences in the Twin Cities to find a line between factors such as household income and the quantity of vegetables, fruits, and medicinal plants people grow in their gardens. The research delves into the financial aspect to find an affiliation with the area people live in, and if that might impact the reasons why they grow crops. 

P.S. My mentor and I enjoy jamming 80s songs on our way to do site visits. 

Hope that everyone else is well and enjoying working on their research!

Hi guys :) 

I am working with folks in the Jelinski lab. We are studying the effect of cardboard mulch on soil properties in Urban Gardens. Our research plots are being used to grow strawberries, beans, and collards, where cover treatments consist of straw, cardboard, and a bare-soil control. This work is aligned with projects conducted by The Urban Farm and Garden Alliance (UFGA) at similar gardens in St. Paul, Minnesota. The main goal of these studies is to find creative, cheap, and effective ways to streamline gardening for those in both urban and rural settings. This week, we finally finished the full plot and gardens set up thanks to everyone’s hard work in the lab, and Jakeisha. I have shoveled many piles of soil, weeded many plants, and also helped with soil sieving and grinding. One of my research highlights has been visiting multiple urban gardens in St. Paul and collecting large amounts of soil samples.

Hi everyone, I hope this reading brings you a smile! 

My name is Jakeisha Lewis, and I am part of the SOAR-REEU program here at UMN that is associated with agriculture and food science! I had a lot of fun during these first weeks and am excited to share it with you all! 

On Tuesday, I learned how to clean a geospatial sensor which is a technological device used to detect sensing for a specific objective. An example would be tracking pests in a cornfield to decide if it needs to be sprayed or not. Wednesday & Thursday, I did some weeding at the organic student farm on the St. Paul Campus. I learned how to hand weed, how to use a graupel hook, and was able to put my weed ID knowledge to use! I did some grass clippings in the greenhouse as well. 

I also got approved for my research proposal! My research will consist of mechanical sensing on tilled/no-tilled agricultural land. The question I am essentially trying to answer is: Through mechanical sensing, can it be determined that lands that have been tilled have higher soil compaction than no-till lands, affecting the environment of the crop to grow? On Friday, I continued to hand weed and it is no joke!! Being on your hands and knees for hours is hard work and dedication. However, I was able to stay motivated because I remembered that I was making a difference in how the crop would turn out. I knew that it would be stronger and produce more yield with careful weeding so that kept me encouraged. I’ve met a decent number of people already and am very excited to meet more!

Thanks for reading and I hope we all have a great summer! 

*Remember you’re important, you have a purpose, and take it all day by day, little by little. You got this! :]*