Jacob's Days in Namibia

Greetings from Namibia! It has been a hot, speedy and intriguing past month and a half for me in Southern Africa. My studies, under the theme of Nation Building, Globalization and Decolonizing the Mind (interpret that one for yourself), have taken me to Johannesburg and Pretoria South Africa and Windhoek and Swakopmund Namibia. Here we have learned about the apartheid legacy from those who lived it, from the sister of Hector Peterson to the man who named Namibia.

Now to the soil stuff. I am interning with a small NGO named "The Namibian Horticulture Trust" who serve disadvantaged communities throughout Namibia to grow food for themselves in the immediate with long-term plans for sustainable business and ecological models. I work at an orphanage called Hope Village (the panoramic below) where I help tend the veggie tunnels (small tunnels that provide shade and relief from grasshoppers) and implement new projects. We are conducting a somewhat informal test on an organic pesticide called "Agritrap" on aphids and red spider mites. I helped set this up and got compliments from some FAO folks thanks to my write-up skills and experimental design; thanks Grossman Lab! We just put together a small vermicompost site that will help with seedling mixes and hopefully be scaled up for some sales and local training in the subject. We will soon implement a dripline irrigation system and I continue to help write grants for them, mostly to the Finnish Embassy. I have had a lot of fun working with the other gardener, Emmanuel, who has some good hands on knowledge of gardening/farming but no institutional education whereas I am a bit of the inverse of him, making us a good team that can share quite a bit of knowledge between us. I recently gave him the entirety of my lecture material from SSC 427....I hope I don't get sued, but he was very appreciative and has already read halfway through "Building Soils for Better Crops" so hooray for knowledge!

I have found this land to be full of wisdom and intrigue; there are no vivid colors or revolutionary happenings, just rolling desert hills and endless nitrogen fixing acacia trees feeding the landscape. I am impressed with the peace of this country, being the second least dense in the world and having peaceful transitions in government.

Best wishes for NC and the pursuit of all good things,
Jacob

Ciencia con Microbios!!

Amanda Roth ('14) working with Rhizobia cultures in the lab.  Congrats, Amanda!! She was just been accepted into her study abroad program in Valencia, Spain.  This summer she will study Spanish Art History.  Have fun in Spain!

Pretend Science?

We do a lot of real science.  But once in a while we have to do some "pretend science" for a photo shoot.  Our students are so popular that they are featured in magazines and articles all the time. I got a chance to photograph one recent lab photo shoot.  Our lab is very photogenic!

Suzi O'Connell (on the left) - a PhD student in Horticulture and Soil Science - was recently featured in the CALS Student Perspectives for her participation in a study abroad partnership with the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Agriculture in Croatia.  For some amazing photos of her trip to Croatia see:  NCSU Ag goes to Croatia

In the picture above:  Suzi O'Connell, her paparazzi, some actual Congo Red dye used in our petri dishes, and some real-life dirty lab dishes (not pretend)!

We Are The Grim Reaper

Watch out plants - the Grossman Lab is coming......  When folks hear that we are the "Soil Agroecology Lab"  the first thought that comes to mind is usually our ability to grow plants.  While we can grow some things, man, we are good at killing them too!  With spring around the corner (yes, even after today's ice storm, we are thinking of spring) we are fast planning our next kill.  Whether we use the disk, the mower, or this roller crimper (see video - thanks Matt!!), we can't stop talking about "termination" or "kill".  We sound like mad, murderous scientists.

The video is in thanks to and a part of Matt Brown's research studying the many ways to kill cover crops.  Who wouldn't want to play with this roller crimper?

Inter-Faith Food Shuttle highlights Parrish Manor program

The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle just published a nice article highlighting the work of Natalie and Jacob at Parrish Manor. Looks like such fun. Lucky teens!  See the original post here: http://foodshuttle.wordpress.com/

Part 3: Gardening Class for Teens at Parrish Manor

November 7, 2012 by Inter-Faith Food Shuttle

Students from NC State University (NCSU) have partnered with Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to conduct a gardening class for teens in the community garden we manage at Parrish Manor, meeting once a week from Sept. 27 – Nov. 15. On the day I visited, NCSU Soil Science students Natalie and Jacob were teaching a lesson on compost. They brought with them a bag of un-enriched potting soil and some finished compost. As an experiment, they asked the class participants to fill 6 mason jars with the following:
Potting soil + vegetable scraps; Potting soil + paper scraps; Potting soil + plastic scraps; Compost + vegetable scraps; Compost + paper scraps; Compost + plastic scraps.

The teens in the class then talked about which material might break down the fastest, considering factors like the amount of micro-organisms present, the amount of nitrogen, etc. Their hypotheses: The vegetables will break down in compost fastest, and the plastic in potting soil will break down slowest. They’ll monitor the jars in the coming weeks to see if their hypotheses are correct.
Natalie and Jacob also taught the class about waste management and jobs that involve waste treatment and composting. They began the lesson by asking the class to draw where they think waste from our toilets goes after it’s flushed, and ended by highlighting ecological waste water treatment practices like those in the EcoVillage of Findhorn, Scotland. They discussed job opportunities in composting, such as vermicomposting mico-enterprises, where such nutrient-rich worm castings are sold as natural fertilizer, and composting operations like CompostNow (another IFFS partner). It was clear to me these teens were seriously interested in this stuff –Kiara, who also works in the garden, is even thinking about changing her major at Wake Tech to something involving agriculture!

The following week, they nailed together compost bins for the garden, and the teens got to create their own vermicomposting bins!

 Fun fact: Did you know that worms can eat twice their body weight in one day? Wow!
See what else has been happening in the Parrish Manor community and community garden in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

Buildin' Bins and Workin' with Worms

SSC 428 Service-Learning for Sustainable Soil Management students work with neighborhood kids to construct a series of compost bins for the neighborhood's community garden and learn about vermicomposting worms. Lookin' good, guys!

Halloween spirit