On an early August morning, senior Kristen Tarr began the journey to her internship at Bradford Research Farms on Rangeline Road, far from her home on the south side. Dressed in holey jeans, boots and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and bearing battle scars from trimming hay, Tarr prepared herself to work and learn.
The concept of helping others has always intrigued Tarr. However, she has recently realized another passion: the environment.
“I had other interests in helping people, like special education or becoming a nurse, just helping people in general, but then I realized I could really help people in securing the future — a sustainable future,” Tarr said, “so I am really interested in sustainability practices, and I got interested in that by seeing how much of a lack [of sustainability practices] there was.”
Her interest in nature combined with her love of science and math meant Bradford Research Farms was just the place for her. She enrolled in the EEE Internship program with Kathryn Fishman-Weaver and quickly began to pursue a spot at the farm.
“I sent my resumé to Bradford Research farms, and I got in contact with the superintendent and I met with them and told them about my interest in environmental science and ecology,” Tarr said, “so they gave me some ideas of projects I could check out over the summer.”
Tim Reinbott, superintendent of Bradford Research Farms, said Tarr was not only a good intern, but was also a big help to an ongoing study that Reinbott is conducting at the farm.
“The project was about cover crops, and that’s a big sustainable, agricultural thing right now,” Reinbott said. “[Tarr], on that project, worked on the whole thing. She helped lay all the plots out; she got all the pieces together for me, and then she put the study out herself. She really did an excellent job on that.”
The research farm helped Tarr dive into the world of sustainability through projects concerning fallow crops. One of her favorite projects was the drought simulator, which tests to see which crops can better withstand droughts. This information enables farmers to grow crops that will grow well, no matter what conditions the plants have to endure. With access to this information, farmers will ultimately get the biggest yield possible.
Besides the drought simulator, Tarr also observed the compost project at the farm. The compost facility helps with community sustainability by creating fertilizers along with helping to relieve landfills, Tarr said.
“They have a big compost facility that composts some of Mizzou’s waste from their dining hall,” Tarr said. “It’s really cool because they add some bacteria into it and heat it up to speed up the process. It smells really bad.”
But not even the overpowering stench could deter Tarr, who already knew research was the route for her. Neither could entire days filled with planting.
“One time I went out there and I planted for the whole morning. We planted marigolds, cosmos, dill — like the stuff in dill pickles. We just planted so much. And then we pulled a bunch of weeds from another plot, and that was a lot of work,” Tarr said. “There was another day when I was out all afternoon. We planted 40 rows of eight to 10 plants, so if you do the math on that, that’s a lot of plants. Those plants were cotton, peanuts, and sesame.”
Even when the work at the farm didn’t pertain to her exact interests, she still learned that she was right about her passion. Labs and research are in her future.
“I want to do climate research. I really like data and working with math, so I really want to be researcher and be in a lab and work on studies and then publish them. But also I’m interested in sustainability so doing lots of studies on that and maybe helping the community be more sustainable,” Tarr said. “Also, I want to work for the government and get more laws in place for protecting forests and our resources, like our rivers, and [limiting] pollution and regulating how much toxic waste and garbage can be dumped. I’m not sure really but somewhere like that.”
Tarr said Bradford Research Farm was the perfect opportunity for a Columbia teen like her. The lessons she learned at the farm will stick with her for a lifetime and give her some peace of mind, reinforcing her feeling that she is going down the right career path.
“Being out at the farm, I get to see what research specialists do on a daily basis. All these guys work for the University and their entire job is getting to conduct research under the name of the University and publish their findings,” Tarr said. “I was out in a real work environment for something I’m interested in doing. It was showing me a model of what my actual career could look like.”
