Milledgeville native is custom to hot summer days

Platteville, Wis.- University of Wisconsin-Platteville sophomore Alli Schmidt was in her first season with the Pioneer softball team when Covid-19 cancelled the season after four games.  The utility player had yet to see the softball field in the young season, but she is seeing plenty of fields during her summer internship at Advanced Crop Care.

Advanced Crop Care is a small company that employees 18 full-time workers year-round.  During the summer Advanced Crop Care will hire roughly 35 interns and have a strong connection with UW-Platteville, having four UW-Platteville agricultural majors currently working at Advanced Crop Care and frequently hire UW-Platteville students for internships.

The 2018 graduate of Milledgeville High School is one of Advanced Crop Care's interns for the summer of 2020.  Milledgeville, Illinois is a small rural agricultural community and her family has been involved in farming and agricultural since she was born and that lead her to UW-Platteville and the strong agricultural program the university offers.  Schmidt is majoring in agricultural business with minors in communications and marketing.

Strong crops may be the most important thing to the agricultural world.  Strong crops not only feed the farms livestock, but it feeds the world.  Advanced Crop Care is an independent company that farmers in Northern Illinois hire to help manage the crops to provide the highest yield.  "Our work consists of inspecting and collecting data from fields of seed corn, commercial corn, soybeans and some specialty crops," supervisor Kenny Oyen said.  Oyen is one of 18 full-time employees at Advanced Crop Care.

Schmidt is part of a three-person crew, starting the day at 6:30 a.m.  Schmidt, Oyen and an additional intern will walk customer's fields once a week checking for weeds, diseases, and insects that would damage the crop.  "After walking the fields; we discuss options and best management practices for the farmer to address the issues that are present in the field," Schmidt said.  "We visit all of our customer's fields every week.  That helps us keep track of growth rates, pests, and overall development of the crop."  Her day normally ends 11 hours later at 5:30 p.m.

11 hours in the hot humid summer months can be taxing on people, but Schmidt is no stranger to being on a field during the summer.  "Playing softball in 100-degree weather prepared me well for walking fields in the hot sun," she said.  "It can be a long day walking fields, but softball taught me to give 100 percent; no matter if it is at the beginning of the day or the end of the day or anytime between.  My teammates deserve that effort, and so do the customers I am working for now, there are no shortcuts in doing something right."

"Whether it is hot, humid, muddy, rainy, cool, dry, windy, or calm and the crops are short, tall, tangled, full of morning dew or pollen, we walk them looking for weeds, insects, diseases and any other issue that affects production," Oyen said.  "Alli then will create a report with the data she collected for the client."

Schmidt has used a lot of the classroom learning from UW-Platteville during her internship, but says Dr. Andrew Cartmill's soil and crop class has proven most valuable.  "We studied different weeds and diseases in Dr. Cartmill's soil and crop class; which has helped a lot during my internship," she said.  "We studied the most common weeds and diseases for our area, and it has helped because I have only come across a few things I have not studied."

Being on the softball team has taught Schmidt that teamwork is important, and now during the internship she is learning about teamwork in the work place.  "Being a member of the softball team allows me to lean on teammates when I am struggling with something," she said.  "And now in the fields, if I find a weed I cannot identify or a disease in the field that I have not seen before, I have my co-workers to lean on for help."

"I have had many non-athletes' intern before that were very hard-working and tolerant of the environment we work in," said Oyen.  "However, knowing she is an athlete I was more confident she had the work ethic, drive and ability to cope with tougher environments."

Schmidt is not sure where her degree will take her.  "I do not have a specific job that I want," she said.  "I think especially for my first job out of college, I want to keep an open mind and be open to the market at the time." 

Advice Schmidt would give to students that are interested in the agricultural majors UW-Platteville has to offer is similar to her career goals.  "Agriculture is so broad and offers something for everyone," she said.  "If you don't know exactly what you want to do, it is ok!  Take a variety of courses for your electives and that can help you explore your options and guide you toward what you like and what you are good at."

Schmidt's options will be there, but if she doesn't find something she wants, she may be able to fall back on another love of hers.  "Ever since my senior year of high school, I wanted to be an auctioneer," she said.  "I would love to attend Missouri Auction school and get my auctioneer license next summer or the summer after.  However, agriculture is advancing all of the time, so I want to remain flexible until it is closer to graduation to determine my ultimate career goals."