By Riley Jose, Nanakuli program
During this field trip, we saw a different kind of farming. The rest of the week, we learned and visited organic farms, but today we visited Monsanto Farms and HARC (Hawaii Agricultural Research Center). At Monsanto we were introduced by Stacie, there we went to different stations to learn about what they do at the farm. During the germination station we created a germination packet. This consisted of a seed, a plastic bag, orbeez, and water. During the “Parts Of A Plant” section of the visit we listened to Melvin talk about how the corn grows and how Monsanto takes the kernels and processes them for seeds. The rest of the stations were erosion (Marie & Malaia) where we made model erosion barriers out of dirt. Vegetable Garden (Mark) where we learned the planting methods of the farm and what they grow there. And lastly, Entomology (Zach) where he taught us about the different insects that roam around along with which ones are dangerous to the crops, and which ones are beneficial.
At HARC we were able to plant Uala or sweet potato in their educational veggie garden, along with extract DNA from a papaya. There we also learned what they grow and what work they are able to conduct in their labs, such as making hybrid plants. We also learned the history of the papaya and how genetically modifying its DNA helped.
During this field trip, we saw a different kind of farming. The rest of the week, we learned and visited organic farms, but today we visited Monsanto Farms and HARC (Hawaii Agricultural Research Center). At Monsanto we were introduced by Stacie, there we went to different stations to learn about what they do at the farm. During the germination station we created a germination packet. This consisted of a seed, a plastic bag, orbeez, and water. During the “Parts Of A Plant” section of the visit we listened to Melvin talk about how the corn grows and how Monsanto takes the kernels and processes them for seeds. The rest of the stations were erosion (Marie & Malaia) where we made model erosion barriers out of dirt. Vegetable Garden (Mark) where we learned the planting methods of the farm and what they grow there. And lastly, Entomology (Zach) where he taught us about the different insects that roam around along with which ones are dangerous to the crops, and which ones are beneficial.
At HARC we were able to plant Uala or sweet potato in their educational veggie garden, along with extract DNA from a papaya. There we also learned what they grow and what work they are able to conduct in their labs, such as making hybrid plants. We also learned the history of the papaya and how genetically modifying its DNA helped.