MSU Department of Horticulture

Coffee is a globally important tropical crop whose quality is influenced by species, growing conditions, harvesting methods, processing techniques, and roasting. Read .extension agent Heidi Lindberg's report on coffee resulting from a recent tour of Costa Rican horticulture farms and facilities. Her first article in the "Taste of the Tropics" series, can be found here: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/taste-of-the-tropics-coffee

Our incoming class of graduate students are currently touring MSU Research Facilities and Farms around Michigan, including apple orchards and apple processing facilities. Many of our graduate students are not from Michigan, so this is an opportunity to introduce them to Michigan horticulture crops.

Our undergrads are currently completing professional internships throughout the country. Over the next several weeks, each student will share a little about their internship experience.

I'm Steve and this summer I'm interning with Dr. David Douches at MSU in his potato breeding program. I have been extracting potato seed, preparing seed potatoes, and planting them at two farm locations. I am also helping with a grad student's dormancy project, and actual plant breeding.



Photo 1: Prepping seed potatoes

Photo 2: Our lab team

Earlier this month, fifty more kids learned about the role of chlorophyll in plants, other plant pigments, and how they have been used throughout history in famous works of art. Kids attending the 4-H Children’s Garden Camp Monet painted bookmarks with plant-based watercolor paint.

Our undergrads are currently completing professional internships throughout the country. Over the next several weeks, each student will share a little about their internship experience.

Hello! My name is Sarah Mrowka and I am completing my internship in Lansing, MI. They are an interiorscaping and exterior design and maintenance company. Having interest in both of these sides of horticulture I figured this company would be perfect to get involved with. My responsibilities have included helping the exterior team with maintenance and interiorscaping rentals, working on design proposals, and installing a preserved moss wall.

Photo 1: The first photo is of a living wall I helped maintain. Green walls are one of my favorite things so this experience was very fun. So many people walking by acknowledged their love for the wall and some were finding out for the first time that it was real plants which I thought was funny.

Photo 2: An interiorscape rental set up for one of the MSU graduation ceremonies. I got to use some creative freedom when placing the plants. My employers were interested in seeing my ideas and supporting my designs.

Our undergrads are currently completing professional internships throughout the country. Over the next several weeks, each student will share a little about their internship experience.

I'm Quinn Grinols and I am interning with professor, Dr. Cholani Weebadde, as a research assistant for her strawberry breeding team. I reached out to her looking for more tissue culture experience, and luckily she had a position for me where I am able to work directly with micropropagation. I chose this job mainly because all of the other offers I got had more of a plant breeding focus, rather than a tissue culture focus.

I have been working in the greenhouse to help maintain our strawberries, as well as leading a project to patent a few strawberry cultivars the team have bred to make the shipping process easier. My main project right now is figuring out a method for decontaminating some of our cultures, and developing a strategy for acclimatizing the rest of the cultures.

Photo2: Cho and I obtaining pollen from strawberries for breeding

Photo 2: One of our sad tissue culture jars that we are working on getting cleaned up.

Our undergrads are currently completing professional internships throughout the country. Over the next several weeks, each student will share a little about their internship experience.

Hi I'm Paige and I'm interning in Tipton Michigan. I am mostly working in the conservatory, but will also be helping out all around the gardens. I chose Hidden Lake Gardens because it is local to where I live and is truly a beautiful place to be. It is somewhere I visited as a kid and loved. I also chose Hidden Lake Gardens because I thought it would be a good place to get a variety of experiences such as watering, repotting, and general maintenance of the gardens.

I personally love visiting the conservatory and seeing plants I can't see growing outside in Michigan. My favorite biome in the conservatory is the tropical biome. I love seeing the alocasia and huge monstera with fruit. The wildlife is also fun to see including birds, chipmunks, and even frogs.

Photo 1: Our first customer at our plant sale this weekend. You can see our customer taking an early look at some plants.

Photo 2: One of my favorite bonsais in the collection. However, I can't wait for the wisteria tree to bloom.

Our undergrads are currently completing professional internships throughout the country. Over the next several weeks, each student will share a little about their internship experience.

Hi! My name is Molly Bowling and I am a design intern , and landscaping company in Grand Rapids, MI. I discovered this company at the networking night and knew I wanted to work for them almost immediately. What drew me in initially was their modern designs and how established their company was. After I learned that they also have a nursery of their own I knew I had to get the job. For a while, it was a goal of mine to have a landscaping company that has its own nursery so I really wanted to see how the two work together and how they implement their own plants into their designs.

Part of my internship is rotational, so I can get a feel for the entire company and see how everything works together. I will install landscapes, work in their greenhouses and sales department, work in their nursery growing and maintaining plants, and work with the design department helping create landscape plans.

Photo 1: Plants that loaded up for installation.
Photo 2: Install location for the plants shown in Photo 1.

Our undergrads are currently completing professional internships throughout the country. Over the next several weeks, each student will share a little about their internship experience.

I am Kyle Campbell and I am one of the interns in Novi, MI. The Tollgate Farm is a very large property (100+ acres), but only a small portion of that is used to grow the crops used for their CSA program. Aside from the staff and interns, Tollgate relies heavily on volunteer groups to help with planting, w**ding, pruning, and harvesting. With that being said, my job is to help volunteer groups, such as Master Gardners, accomplish those tasks, as well as other farm chores.

Tollgate also has a 4H program and a summer camp for kindergarten-age kids. While the kids have their own program coordinators, I have still helped the kids with farm chores (mostly harvesting and w**ding). Tollgate has several goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and a pony to teach kids in the 4H program about different livestock species. Several mornings during the week, It has been my responsibility to milk the goats as well as bottle feeding the babies. I've really enjoyed working with the goats so far, they have more personality than you'd think!

Photo 1: Layla the goat being milked. The goats are given feed to encourage them to get on the milking stand and keep them content.
Photo 2: Baby goats, which are bottle-fed 3 times a day.
Photo 3: Temple the boat posing for the camera.
Photo 4: A plastic mulch laying machine in action. Tollgate grows their CSA crops to an organic-standard, so planting into plastic mulch is a necessary way to keep w**d pressure down.

Our undergrads are currently completing professional internships throughout the country. Over the next several weeks, each student will share a little about their internship experience.

Hi there! My name is Kelsey and this summer I am interning .femininefarmer, an organic CSA (community supported agriculture) vegetable and flower farm in Grand Blanc, Michigan. I chose this farm because I love giving back to the community and I loved the fact that it is ran and operated by women (she also owns a pool for the farmhands to dip in- very nice). So far this summer I have pruned tomato plants, harvested strawberries, seeded beds, sprayed plants with organic fertilizer (fish emulsion), worked the Birmingham farmer's market and I w**ded. A lot.

Photo 1: Here I am working the Birmingham Farmer's Market () selling eggs, herbs, leafy vegetables, strawberries, starter plants, and flower bouquets (we sold out of bouquets and strawberries at this market!) I chose to share this photo because it is easily one of my favorite parts of the job so far. It's also an nice respite from the usual manual labor. The customers are always lovely, the weather is usually great, and I really feel like I am giving back to the community.

Photo 2: In this photo I am spraying the lily plants with Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew which is an organic insecticide. I am using this because lily beetles destroy the plants' leaves and they are starting to take over here. I decided to share this image because I have worked part time on farms before but this is the first time I have ever done an insecticide application!