Quinn Shapiro

Senior Seminar

Mr. Niko

5 December 2020

Mentorship Final Reflection

I did my mentorship with Mario Gaggero, a local farmer who specializes in seed

breeding. I originally set out to learn about the agricultural process and what it takes to grow a

successful crop. For the first twenty hours of my mentorship, I learned about the corn breeding

process. I helped to pollinate the corn which is a simple but specific task. The first day of

pollination you put a paper bag on all of the male corn plants’ tassels, which is where all of the

pollen is produced. The next day, you carefully remove the bag from the male plants and put it

on the female plants’ corn stalks, attempting to not let pollen fall out of the bag. You then repeat

this until all of the male crops stop producing pollen. You are also always inspecting the female

crops for budding stalks with no silk, and if you find a silkless stalk, you must cover it with a

paper bag. If you find an exposed stalk with silk, that means the silk could have been

contaminated by pollen from the wrong plant and that stalk must be ripped off. The two main

goals of this whole process are to pollinate as many stalks as possible and to make sure none of

the stalks get contaminated and kept. If a contaminated stalk is allowed to grow and get

harvested, it could mess up data collection.

The next ten hours of my mentorship were mainly to set me up to start my senior project.

This included planting the seeds and setting up an irrigation system for the crop that I am

planting, the Tropic Sun Hemp. We first had to put down drip irrigation tape with a large tractor.

Then, we tied off the ends of the tubes on one side of the field, connected a larger pipe to the
ends on the other side of the field, and turned the water on to test for leaks in the drip tape. We

then searched for leaks in the tubes, and when we found one, we cut out that section of tube and

replaced it with a connector piece. The next step was to plant the seeds. We used a machine that

scattered the seeds using a pendulum (since we do not need to keep track of which seeds and

plants are which, we do not need to plant them in straight rows.) We then had to cover the seeds,

so we dragged a chain behind a tractor which pushed soil over them. Since the dirt was dry, we

had to set up extra, temporary sprinkler irrigation to allow the seeds to germinate. Finally, we set

timers on the irrigation system so that we wouldn’t waste water.

Throughout my mentorship, I also met with my mentor weekly (or about six times). We

mainly talked about my senior project and our plan to plant the Tropic Sun Hemp. We also

talked about the seed business and the difference between farming for seeds and for produce. We

talked about the agricultural possibilities on Maui. Since Maui has the advantage of year-round

farming but the disadvantage of a small amount of land, seed farming is much more efficient

than produce farming.

My number one takeaway from my mentorship was seeing how complicated some of the

problems that Maui faces are. For example, it would be very difficult to make Maui

self-sustainable just by using most of its land to grow produce. I think this mentorship heavily

addressed Civic Literacy and Engagement skills. I learned about small steps that the Maui

community can take to begin to solve problems, like our reliance on imports. I also think that this

project addressed Financial and Business Literacy skills because I learned a lot about the

business side of farming, including equipment and resource costs, profit margins of crops, and

how the environment affects what the best crop to grow is. The final skill that I believe this

mentorship improved was communication skills because I had to keep in contact with my mentor
so that we could plan times where we could meet and also days that both him and I were

available to work on the farm.

I believe that I did accomplish my goal of learning more about the agricultural process. I

feel prepared to continue with my senior project. I think that the most valuable aspect of this

experience was a deepening understanding of the overall agricultural process and the business of

the agricultural industry. I think that I will be able to apply this knowledge as I move forward,

even if I do not go into the agricultural industry directly. I think that the greatest challenge that I

faced was some of the hard labor that I did. I now understand how difficult it can be to work on a

hot farm for eight or more hours in a day.

I think this mentorship gave me some valuable knowledge as I move forward. I believe

that I am now better prepared to solve problems that in fields like environmental science now

that I understand the basics of the agricultural process. Most importantly, this mentorship has

also opened my eyes to the complexity of issues that Maui and even the entire globe face, which

further inspires me to pursue solutions.