Granton FFA member using SAE grant to research fertilizers

An important part of an FFA member’s experience is their SAE. Now, you might be asking yourself, “What is an SAE?” SAE stands for Supervised Agricultural Experience. SAEs allow FFA members to explore their interests and find possible career paths and opportunities in the agriculture field.

For example, I just started my SAE in agronomy. I applied for a Wisconsin FFA SAE Start-Up grant and was rewarded with enough money to start my research. I am going to do a research project for the Agri-Science Fair in spring about the effects of different types of fertilizers on plants, more specifically, vegetables.

I have chosen a variety of vegetables that I will be planting in the school greenhouse to grow. The vegetables I have chosen to work with are radishes, lettuce, arugula, tomatoes, peas, and green beans. I will be testing how each plant reacts to inorganic fertilizer, synthetic organic fertilizer, and natural organic fertilizer.

The key things I am looking for to improve are the yield of each plant and the taste and look of each vegetable. My goal is to take my research from this year and move it to starting my own small business growing and selling plants, as well as helping people figure out which fertilizers to use in gardens. This SAE will follow me as I enter high school next year and continue to expand my project. It is my hope to become an agronomist once I am out of school. This research has grown my interest in agronomy even more and I cannot wait to continue that.

SAEs are a very important tool for learning about agriculture. I have already learned a lot more about not only agronomy, but also things on filling out grant applications, managing time, becoming more independent and responsible, and growing plants, all while having some fun along the way.

It is incredible that I feel like I have already learned so much and I have only just started weeks ago. This is shaping up to be an incredible experience and I can’t wait to see what is coming up next in my research for my SAE.