Dawn of the twilight tour - by Grace Tisone

One of the hemp plants at the farm that we visited - this was after we went though and took leaf samples from the plants

I think that empathy in the workplace is a very important skill to have when it comes to career success because essentially all jobs involve working with people. Having empathy and being mindful of practices associated with such is a way to be able to connect with those that are in your workplace, and create meaningful connections with people in your related field. I think one of the most important things that empathy deals with is seeing others’ points of view when trying to find a solution to a problem. In most cases, although the problem and overarching issue will be a commonality between most people involved, the minute details or smaller issues within a larger problem tend to vary in importance to people. Having empathy is a way to understand the differences in values between people and learn to come to a common understanding that solves the problem, but also addresses the smaller concerns that other people may have. 

This week in the internship, all of the focus was on preparing for the twilight hemp tour that is happening on Tuesday the 26th. This tour will encompass multiple studies that are going on at the Wye Research and Education Center, and also cover some of the studies that are happening at offsite locations, such as other research centers and separate farms. One of the things that we did this week was visit one of these offsite locations, which was a farm located about 45 minutes away from the Wye where Dr. Ristvey has hemp plants for a study on nutrient loads. Going out to this farm and seeing the way that different varieties of hemp grows and looks at stages that are similar to the plants that are at the Wye was very interesting; the plants at this farm had a totally different shape and stature when compared to the fiber hemp plants at the Wye. 

When we got to the farm we had to collect samples of the meristems and also of the leaves in order to get samples of the THC content. We had to collect multiple leaf and meristem samples from each of the plants that were in the study in order to do a proper assessment of the THC content in the plants. In addition to taking this trip out to the farm, part of this week involved creating large posters to have on display for the hemp tour that would contain information and graphics about the studies. These posters are going to be on display during the talks that will be given at the twilight tour for people to view the information and also see pictures of the studies that have been done not at the Wye. This whole tour is a large collaborative effort between the researchers, students, and staff at the Wye and involves a lot of planning, communication, and of course, empathy. These tours are a very important part of extension because it is a way for the researchers to display the work that they have put into their research, but also a way for Extension to increase their public outreach and awareness, especially when it comes to dealing with industrial hemp.

A picture of the entire study from the other farm, the study is much smaller than the one at the Wye and the plants look very different!