ACRE Safety Training

Transcript for Field Safety

So, if you ever get out there and it's cold, what can we do to help keep us warm? Layers. Layers. That is a great option. Okay. Layers. Small thin layers. Okay. Sometimes you pair socks. You ever heard somebody actually put um rubber bags, plastic bags over their feet? Do you know why? Waterproof your feet. Waterproof your feet. So, what else can you do besides layers? Wear a hat. You wear a hat in the winter time, it actually helps your body trap that heat and helps keep you warmer. So, definitely pay attention in the cold. So, let's flip gears and talk about the heat. Last time I checked, it's supposed to be 85 degrees today. So, what can we do to help prevent getting overheated or working in the heat? What can we wear? Let's start with that. Say that louder. Lighter clothes. Why? Breathable. Okay. So, we get some good airflow. Some like if you get that nice thick cotton or black, what does that do out in the sun? We're going to get a little warm than that, right? So, layers, okay? Or thin layers. Um, trying to have light glowing, light colors would also be beneficial. What can we do also to help prevent you from getting overheated? What can we drink? Water. Large amounts of water. Okay. Um, and the other thing when you are working in the heat is acclamation. How many of you guys have heard that word before? What does it mean?

All right. Put it this way. Could you guys all go hiking with me for about three hours and not pass out? Why? You're absolutely right. Why? You're not used to it. You're not used to doing it. How many of you guys have worked on a farm before? A few. A few. How many of you guys have been out in the farm when it's 85 degrees outside working out in the field? How did it feel? It was hot, right? Okay. So, if you are not used to working in the heat, you need to acclimate. I've worked with different groups, FNRs, farms. Students don't acclimate. You guys are not here. You guys don't have that experience of working out with feet for long periods of time. So, acclimation, give your time, give your body time to acclimate because if you start getting overheated, what are some of those symptoms? Dizziness, claminess. You got anything back here? You ever get overheated? No, not there yet. So, if you start getting overheated, you're going to maybe start getting clammy, dizzy. Um, hopefully you didn't stop sweating. You need to remove yourself from the heat. Okay. Now, do you want to go right into air conditioning? Oh, people are shaking their head now. Why? Because you're right. It's shock. You cannot take your body from one extreme to the other. So, if you are getting overheated, okay? Stop what you're doing. Get to some shade. That's going to be your best bet at this point. Get to some shade. You can get some water to drink some cool water. Maybe put some cool compresses on your neck. But here's the thing. Don't expect yourself to just be able to go too. I don't want to sit. Your body needs to acclimate. Okay? And if you guys get overheated, that can be a serious health concern. So, let's talk about the heat. So, how do you guys know how hot it is out? What the heities are?

Yeah, absolutely. Do you guys know what increases your heat indices? Let's say it's 75 degrees outside, but maybe the humidity. How many of you guys have heard of humidity? If you haven't, go outside today. You'll feel the humidity that increases our heat indices. So, now what are our heat indices that you think maybe I shouldn't go out in? Uh, over 90. Actually, right now there is no federal guidelines, but I'm going to tell you the the government has said anything that feed indices over 100. That's a little hot for me. So, but I'm going to tell you, your farm staff, we want you to be healthy. We want you to be safe. This is why we're doing it. So, what can we do to help keep you safe and maybe work in earlier parts of the day that you guys know the hottest part of the day is between like 12:00 and 4, unless we get storms, whatever that Indiana. So, see what you can do to adjust earlier parts of the day. How many of you guys wear any kind of PPE when you're out working? Does that make it hotter or colder? Hotter. So, now got to take that into consideration, right? to talk cold heat. Some other weather extremes that we might have in the state of Indiana, tornadoes. Now, how many of you guys know where tornado shelters are in our farms? Okay. ICS has tornado shelters and they're in their bathrooms, right? How many of you guys go to TAC? Megs.

Million dollar question. Megs. Where do you go? Ditch. Say that louder. A ditch. She's right. You're right. You go to a lowest point. Unfortunately, we don't have a storm shelter there. We do have some in We have some buildings out there, but your safest spot, you said on the east side of the barn, there's a ditch. The lowest spot on the property. That's what we're going to do. How do we tornadoes? Are we going to see them? Hopefully not. If you hear sirens, I want you out of the fields. Okay. Don't be dumb. I'm just gonna tell you, don't be dumb. Now, let's go to TAC. Where's CPAC going to end though? Where are we going to find shelter?

No, we're not going to go into Pete Chilling's basement, although we could. There is a house on the property. Not a great recommendation. There are some interior bathrooms. There's one over in the shop. Uh, and there's one over in well, it's near wherever that cooler bar is for the number we were using earlier. But guess what? When in doubt, the ditch. And it's unfortunate, but that's our options right now. So, if we had tornadoes, we go into a ditch. What are some other things that we probably shouldn't be out in the field if we're seeing or hearing? Lightning or thunder? My daughters used to call thunder the tractors or the trucks. They trying to play soccer. I said, "I didn't hear that. tracks. But if you hear thunder, guess what's probably not too far behind it? Lightning. And guess what? You are probably the tallest thing in that field. Am I wrong? You look around. What else is in that field besides you? So guess what? You become lightning rod. So if you hear thunder or lightning, I want you out of the fields.

What other things can we talk about when it comes to weather and what do we need to know? So, how do you acclimate? Let's just go back to that. How do you acclimate to be able to work in this heat? Start working.

You're right. Start small. Anyone ever done any kind of exercise program or running? Did you start small or do you just go out there and run five miles? Small. because your body wasn't ready for that five mile run. Start small. Get your body up to working in the heat, working in the cold, whatever it happens to be. Maybe we're doing something more physical, guys. All physical and ready to go. Once again, can wear out your body. So, start small, take small steps, but definitely pay attention to your body. But you know what else I'm going to tell you? Look out for your friends and those co-workers around you. Hey, have you been drinking enough water this morning? I know it's like really warm outside. Have you been drinking enough water? Look out for each other, but also pay attention. So, one of the things we're doing on our farms is between the farm staff. So, I do the farm staff today cuz I have them looking out for each other. Hey, check in on a regular basis because how many of you guys work maybe alone or do you guys normally work in groups? Working groups. That's a great thing. So, you have somebody else to look at after. But not all of my guys do. Good girls. Okay. So, I have them look out after each other. Pay attention. Call each other. Just check in. Hey, how's it going? Once again, are you drinking their water? Now, last question. How do you know how much water is enough?

You're absolutely right. You said it. Have you heard my lessons before? No, just just the one. Okay. It's the same. I use the same a lot of the same concepts. Okay. If you are going to the bathroom frequently, you probably have enough water, but it's also the color of your urine. I know it's kind of crazy. If it's purple or orange, you probably have too many monsters. Back off on those. We should be clearer. Okay. Um, but your that's also going to help you between making sure you're doing the right thing is taking some frequent breaks. Okay. If you kind of start, hey, I'm getting kind of hot and sweaty. Maybe I just need to take a five minute breather. That will help with your affirmation because once again, if you keep going, you will love it. I promise you that. Has anyone ever seen someone suffering from heat exhaustion, right? From getting overheated. Yeah. How they look. Okay. They threw it in from the parking lot. Not unusual.

Those are some signals that maybe we need to look out at each other. Hopefully, we could have avoided it, but they got their bodies from it, didn't they? Absolutely.

Do you guys have any questions for me at all? Anything we've gone over? So, pay attention to your heat indices. But here's the other thing. Okay, even in the cold, if you get out here and you're like, I don't think this is good for me. Maybe it just whatever the case is. Do you have the right to stop what you're doing? Do you know that? Do you know that you can actually say, "I don't care if you're a PI. I don't care who it is. You can blame me. I tell people blame me all the time. I have no problem with that. Jennifer says it's I'm not comfortable. I don't think this is safe for me to be out here, especially in the cold. I know we had we had an instance this last year. Um and it's very concerning. So, I'm just looking that out of here. Like I said, work on acclamation, work on drinking lots of water, but then the biggest thing is look out for each other. So if you are working in the heat, take your time. Enjoy. It's a great experience working on the floor. I love it. I love doing my nails with dirt. As far as I don't have dirt now to show I was playing the dirt again. Sorry, I'm You guys have any questions? That's about all I have. I think that's probably real close to time.

Fun station. Fun station. So, oh, we can talk about environmental hazards. You guys know we have three poisonous stakes in the state of Indiana.

Those are some environmental things I can address. You guys know what they look like? I'm going to tell you how I found out. I'm not a fan of snakes. I end up going to the zoo last week, two weeks ago, with a friend of mine in Texas. She was a zookeeper and she goes, "If their head is a triangle, they are poisonous." Like, you not have to get that close to us. Not happening. Okay. But I will let you know, we do have poisonous snakes. Um, what else do we have going around here that could be environmental? Snakes. Snakes are huge this year, are they not? Anyone ever seen them already? Not yet. Oh, lots. We've already started getting them. I live down south. some of some of our pluses, some of our farms even further south really started getting them. So tips, biggest thing you can do for tips, keep your body covered. Yeah. Uh especially with your legs, they like to crawl up, jump on you. Um but then pay attention when you're done. Kind of look around your body, figure out if you have any any leftover friends. Um now, what happens if we do get a tick bite? You going to record it? Here's

my recommendation that I've had people had sick bites. Report it. Doesn't hurt anybody. It doesn't hurt anybody. It's a simple first date. It's not a big deal. Do you guys know how to report a tick bite? Or let's say we get repeated. That is a medical condition. I want to know, do you know how to report?

Does anyone in here know how to report? This is great. tell your PI. If you can't find your PI, find Rachel, find Jay, find one of the superintendent. It is not a big deal. And by the end of today, I will give you a slam card that looks like this. And you'll be able to use your phone and it will take you to a website of actually how to how to uh submit an injury. So, this will be later this afternoon. We have options. I want to know why do I want to know if you've got bit by a t?

Unfortunately, they carry some diseases. It's not to be overly concerned about. How do we avoid it? Let's just go that way. Other than clothes,

bug spray, something deep, something with that. And we use it all the time. Huh? Yeah. We're going to use something to help keep them off of us. Prevention is your best bet. So, please pay attention. Um, like I said, the biggest thing if it's too cold, layer up if you need to, but also if you don't get out there and it's not safe for you, you don't feel safe, you can stop. If it's too hot, I don't think I'm going to make it today. Maybe you didn't have a very good day or you just you're not feeling off. That can really put you at more risk. So, definitely pay attention to this.

Transcript for Appropriate Field Workwear

Come on up here, guys. You're s standing way too far back. Get in front of these tables. There we go. So, we're talking about PPE, farm safety, um things of that nature today. So, I'll tell you right up front, I'm a shoe snob. I watch people's shoes for the places they are. When I was on campus that I always check everybody's shoes who I was walking, you guys have all done a great job with the shoes you're wearing here today. really good shoes. So, how many guys have a pair of sandals like these showers? Now, would you wear these here at the farm? Why would we not wear these here at the farm? Yeah, but they do coordinate well with these pants, don't you think? Now, how many would wear these pants? I mean, they coordinate. This would be a lovely outfit for tomorrow. Um, these guys not appropriate field tire. Um, for one, they're really kind of hot. Uh, and for two, they are not a material that is very safe. They will tear easily if they get caught in equipment. These guys, obviously, you're going to get your feet injured. Now, if we move on up, these are great for planter fascia. Very supportive. You can run fast in them because they have a little incline. They throw you forward when you walk. These will also absorb all the water from the wet grass. I mean, how many of you going to spend your summer doing computer typing and never go to the field? [snorts] One. You can wear whatever shoes you want in the office. Um, you go out in the field first thing in the morning, you're going to have squishy feet the rest of the day. So, keep that in mind. Bring a spare pair of shoes for the afternoon. A pair of leather shoes will work better. They will shield your feet. They're not going to tear if you have equipment move over them as easily. Um, the best move is a safety toe shoe. Obviously, all of you guys are not going to buy a 200 pair of dollar $200 pair of shoes. Um, but you can get these that safety toe shoes that are more this style like a tennis shoe um at the local box stores and those will help you. Now, if you do decide to wear this style, I would suggest buying camp dry. Waterproof your tennis shoes. Um, you'll be able to walk into the field. Now, if you walk in the field, the grass is this tall. Water's going to go down the inside of them. No camp dry on the outside is going to protect it when the water runs down your legs. But if you've got it sprayed on the outside, you can walk across the alleyway grass and do readings and things like that. So, you want to make sure you've got good shoes on. Now, I've got all sorts of clothes. I'm looking at your shirts here. You guys like a lot of black. Now, if you were given a choice of t-shirts, which one would you wear in a field? Okay. So, you're all wearing black today. Um, why are you choosing this one? It's lighter. It's lighter. Now, why do we want to wear a lighter colored shirt? Exactly. You're not going to absorb that heat into your body. You're going to be able to endure being outside longer since you're the only one not going to be outside. I never had a job like that. [laughter] Do you do drone work? GIS kind of stuff. Yeah. Okay. That expensive. You're you're you're let off. Okay. So, anybody in shorts today? No. Nobody in shorts. That's great. Oh, there's pair in the back there. Oh, and step up here. Let's see your shoes. You going in the field? Look at my back. Sorry. Sorry. [laughter] Are you going in the field? Look at my back. No, no, no. I I'm not wearing this shirt. So, today is just a train. And he's wearing black. This is my what not to do. Thank you for being here today. This is You go hide in the back now. So, if you're going to wear shorts, wear a durable pair of shorts that are not super baggy, that are going to get grabbed up by equipment. um but will be a durable and pockets always help when they got to hand you stuff to keep in the field. Now, long trousers of some nature um are one of the best to wear. One thing is you notice these are starting to wear out here. They're starting to wear out here. We got it right here. Pop up here, darling. I love all these displays today, my little model. Now we we walk past it in piece of equipment. What's going to happen? [laughter] Snag. They're going to snag. So maybe maybe these are lovely training day pants so that we could uh look at them. But probably not everyday work pants unless you cut them off and make them shorts. But this little guy here, I have a couple pairs of pants that have those. Those will get hooked on your equipment and yank you in as well. So, you need to pay attention to I mean, you didn't even know you were going to have to pay attention to what clothes you wear every day. Um, we've talked about not wearing these. This one is one of my favorite shirts to wear in the field over the years. You can see that it used to be much darker. Um, sun fades them out, but it's a breathable material, but you see it doesn't have any sleeves on it. So, what's going to happen to my shoulders? Sunburn. Get a really good sunscreen. Um, one that's a minimum of an SPF 30. Uh, a 50 is better. When you start getting above 50, the numbers kind of blur and they're all about the same at that level. Now, you've got a lovely hat on. Keeps your nose protected. You got plenty of hair to protect your ears. Now, if I put that hat on, what's happening to my ears? Yeah, it's going to expose those little babies. I don't know any retired eronomist who has not had the top of their ears shaved because back in the day and when I say retired eronomist I'm talking people that are in their 70s 80s they've all been to dermatologists they've all had surgical procedures on their ears the tips of their nose even the cheeks cheekbones so you need to make sure you lather all of that up a boon hack works better to protect your ears and your nose um I get too hot in a hat so I just have to be the sunscreen queen and just slather it on me. So, there are tons of different ones you can get. You can smell like you're on a tropical island. Uh you can smell like you're the greatest sports athlete in the world. They have every kind. So, find one that works for you and utilize it. Now, if I'm wearing this sleeveless shirt and it's cool and wet in the morning, I have picked up at the local secondhand store just a cotton long sleeve shirt. These are great to wear over your t-shirt in the morning. Um, how many of you going to walk in corn over your head this year? How many have done corn over your head walks lots? Have you died by a thousand cuts? Yeah. And the water? Yes. You get wet, you get cut. Um, corn starts off soft when it's below your knees. Nice. Lovely. Nice plant. Then as it starts getting taller, those leaves are going to get stronger as they start sticking up and they're going to slice you. So you get a long sleeve shirt, put that over when you go into the cornfield when you come out. Then you can take that off. Um I even flip my collar up so I don't get the cuts around my neck. They also like at in the fishing section at store you can buy like a buff and cover your face. Yes. Which is very nice. But if you wear safety glasses as you go in there and do that. That's fine until it's really wet and it's a little [clears throat] foggy in there. But yeah, if you want to cover your face, but safety glasses or sunglasses, the sports glasses that wrap around are great. Now, who's going to be working plots like um mowing, trimming, things like that? Anybody doing that this year? May have to use a string trimmer. Um, so if if you are asked to do that, make sure you've got polycarb lenses. Just wearing what looks like standard sunglasses or even regular eyeglasses. Unless you have polycarb lenses, these are a death trap for you. Everybody goes, "Oh, I've got my sunglasses on. I've protected my eyes." Um, my spouse was moving tree branches while someone was trimming. branch came down, shot to the front of the yard, hit the glass lens, and then the splinter went into the eye. Well, mowers and string trimmers throw stuff a lot faster than that splinter went flying across the yard. So, regular sunglasses and eyeglasses aren't going to cut it. Make sure you've talked to your scientists. Get a good pair of um safety glasses. And if you're going to be like in the field and you need safety glasses on, but you want to wear sunglasses, ask your faculty members, can you buy us some shaded ones? They come in shaded colors like sunglasses that are safety glasses. Now, how many of you are going to work around a threshing machine or a grinding machine, anything like that? How many have worn earplugs? How many have actually read the instructions on the ear plug? How to install them? So, you're shaking your head. Yes. Tell me how to put this earplug in. Make it as small as possible. Try to shove it as far as in possible. Okay. So, you have not read the instructions.

Yes. Squishing it works. But I when I was your age, we just shoved them in our ears and I always said these never work for me and I would wear a headset. Well, I got tired of having that pressed against my face and then when you quit, you have that ring around your ear. So, we went back to those. I actually read the back of that one day. Surprise. You squeeze it up and then you reach behind your head and you pull your ear back. It opens your ear canal and you shove that scrunched up thing in there. Then you let go and let it fill the hole. And then you pull your finger away. You will be amazed at how this really blanks out what you're hearing. Now, you can put a um sound meter on your cell phones to read decibb. Anything over 85, you guys need to make sure you're wearing hearing protection. If you're working near a tractor, um, where there's some equipment moving around, where there's a constant, um, it doesn't even have to be really, really loud, but a constant wears on your the little hairs in your ear and over time your hearing will decline. So, the more you wear these, the more you protect yourself. How many people have gloves? What kind of gloves you guys wear? Leather. You like the leather gloves? I got these for my spouse. Always losing them in the yard. I can find these. I prefer leather. Um, how many people are going to soil sample this summer? If you're going to use any kind of tools that you are pushing or pulling, I found fingerless weightlifting gloves work really well because it has a pad right here at the base of your fingers as well as a pad across the back of your palm. And you can push and pull all day long and not get those those blisters. When you're getting those blisters, you're no good to anybody because you have wounds on your hands and then you can't do the job. So, you know, don't think, oh, I'm going to bare hand this and I can just do it. If there's abrasion to it, you want to wear some sort of protection, whether it be a full glove or um a fingerless glove that's that's got that padding in the base. Um, have you guys ever heard of stop work authority? That's an OSHA phrase. you guys have the right if you feel like what your supervisor has asked you to do um they haven't provided you with the right PPE or the weather is super inclement you know you see that there's a lightning forecast you see that um it's going to be a heat index of 110 today in general when the heat index gets up to 100 you need to make sure you're out of the field before that happens you reschedu the work to be earlier in the morning or later in the day. When's the hottest part of that day? Yeah. Somewhere between noon and three, you're going to hit the hottest part. I mean, with all the new weather apps, you just look at it and it'll it'll tell you how the temperature is going to rise. Um, you [clears throat] need to make sure you're hydrating. You need to have insulated drink containers to have your your water or your Gatorade, you know, your electrolyte drinks. um minimize the amount of caffeine you're consuming while you're out in the field um because that's going to dehydrate you faster. The more caffeine you drink, the more your body is going to sweat out the liquids and so it kind of defeats the purpose. So, you need to make sure that anything you're doing, you don't feel like you're putting your health at risk or someone else's health or or you know, you don't want injury, you don't want illness. Um, anybody know what the the heat stress symptoms are? Somebody shout them out. Climbing is easy. Nausea, headache. Dehydration is going to cause a headache. Keep drinking every 15 minutes while you're out in the field. You will minimize that headache. Um, how many of you have spent a lot of time working outside? Do you know if you guys have allergies to things outside? So, be aware of that when you first start out in the field because I mean, right now there's only been about three days of good field work. You can get out there and do a little prep, but there's not a lot going on. Um, be prepared with allergy medication if you need it because getting out there in the field, you're going to be exposed to things that maybe you have never in your life been exposed to. So, wearing the appropriate clothes, having the right safety gear, getting the right shoes are going to keep you safe in the field. And when you come to work every day, this is a working research farm. They're doing tours with professionals from all over the state and country out here all the time. If you want careers in this field as you get out of college, some of those people could be your employers. So, you don't want to come out here looking like a hoochie coochie mama or a jigalo. You want to look like you came out here to do the job. you know how to be a professional even though you are just at the some of the entry level or graduate level of what you're doing. You could be facing your future employers and they're going to go, "Oh, I saw that guy at the far. No, I don't want that on my staff." So, you want to make sure you're professional at all times and you're safe with what you got. Thanks you guys.

Transcript for Mowing & UTV Operation

All right. First, if I'm going to drive be driving a mower or anything like this, what what things should I do before I start? Before I get on the thing and start driving around, what are some steps I need to take? Safety glasses. Safety glasses. All right. Let's talk about PPE then. Oh, that's safety glasses first. Why Why am I wearing safety glasses? It's free, right? freaking kick out, right? Um I have a coworker that always likes to tell people don't like to wear safety glasses. It is I'm sure you guys don't want to lose an eyeball at Purdue. Purdue is a great wonderful place. It's awesome, but it's not worth sacrificing any part of her body, right? So, safety glasses. What other PP should I wear? Long sleeves. Long sleeves and hearing protection, right? So, we want long sleeves, right? It's going to protect us from the sun and protect your like debris, too, right? And also if you're dealing with weeds, if you're allergic, helps prevent rashes. And then hearing protection, right? So different types of hearing protection. I think they cover the PP section. You want to make sure you're wearing very loud. Okay. If you've been driving a mower all day, how can you tell if you're wearing your air connection well enough? What would be a sign at the end of the day? Find out, hey, I'm not I'm not putting my earplugs in right. not ear, right? Like a ringing. Yeah, like a rigging, right? So, if you ever been out out all night at a bar, a concert, sometimes you get rigging in your ears, right? That's that damage that's happening. Eye protection, hearing protection, long sleeves. What else? Long pants, and shoes. Yeah, long pants, right? Same thing. And then closed to shoes, right? So make sure you wear I I would suggest something kind of sturdy, right? So what wouldn't be clo considered long close to shoes would be what? Crocs, right? Sandals and then So yeah, unfortunately those wouldn't be good. [laughter]

So if you're trying to hide behind that [laughter]

and then I do like wearing dudes, but I would not wear that out far, right? They're just not going to offer that kind of protection to your toes. Right. All right. So, I got my uh PP down. First of all, do I want to wear a hat? Yeah, you might want to wear a hat. That's for protecting yourself from the sun, right? Make sure you don't get all sunburned.

What if I'm working near a road? High viz. High viz. Right. You want to make sure your cars see you, right? I know you're on a mower. Doesn't mean they're going to see you. Right. Everyone's driving with a lot of different distractions. Oh, we got like videos on our displays of cars, right? So, you want to make sure you stand out as much as possible. Um, all right. Got all my PP on. Now, before I jump on this thing, what precautions? What should I be? Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to take a walk around, right? I'm going to check tires. My tires looking in good condition. They have the air pressure do they need? Um, these boxes on the sides, these are guards, right? So, I want to make sure they're all in place as well. Um, if they're not in place, should I drive this? No. If I find anything wrong, my tires aren't filled up correctly, I'm missing kind of metal guarding, anything on there, you don't want to use, right? So, my guard's all in place. Got fuel in there. Everything looks fine. And then what's what's this thing right here? Roll bar. Yeah, it's roll bar, right? So, a lot of times is rock is another term for it. Um, this needs to be up at all times, right? So, in case the unfortunate happens and you guys tip this thing, right, it rolls over, right? If I'm sitting here with this el headed below this, if this is not here, what's going to hit first? Your head, right? And it's not it's not right. All right, that's all in place. Next thing I need to know, I need to get on this thing. How should I get on? Should I just jump on? Should I just step on points of contact? All right. What does that mean? Uh, grab something like No, just step on like grab something. So, three points of contact. I'm grabbing something with my hand and as I'm stepping up, right? I don't really want to step on the name's looting me, but where my blades are, right? The depth. All right. I don't want to damage that and it moves, right? So, I want to three points of contact that prevents you from slipping and falling, right? All right. I got on and there's a seat belt. Do I wear the seat belt? Does that matter? All right. So, same thing. If you would roll, right, and I don't have my seat belt on, this thing's not really gonna help you very much, right? You're going to fall out of it. And then what's going to roll over? Right. Right. So, I'm on there. And then as I get started, anything about my environment should I be worried about? Should I be checking? Rocks and stumps. rocks and stumps like any size rocks. Uh like I don't know, probably bigger than like big rocks, right? You know, stumps. What else? I know Indiana's flat, but what could be in the area? Ditches. Ditches. Slopes. Right.

Then for slopes, what precautions do you need to take? Right. So, think about it. Got you got a slope, right? If it's should I go right at the side of the slope like a hill or should I go more up and down?

Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. Perpendicular. Yeah. Or Yeah. For some reason, I'm thinking barrel. Yeah. You don't want to go down the side of it. That's when you're going to tip over, right? And generally the rule of thumb is anything really over like 15 to 20 degrees kind of kind of hill right probably want to more go down then up the steeper you go you're going up you got weight all in the back you know you can eventually dip dip backwards right so if you got a big hill I don't I don't see any here the rule of thumb is hey I want to I want to get off like a ditch I want to use an edger or right so I don't have that chance of rolling rolling

A few other things with the mower. One, generally don't mow backwards, right? You might have to go backwards that you don't really want to go because you might not see something as well and you're going to run something over. Um, also, if you're going over roads of gravel, you want to make sure you turn the blades off, right? So, you're not kicking stuff out. All right. So now I'm either done or maybe some reason there's I got a jam or something like that. So now I got to get off the mower. What do What do we do? Do we leave it running? No, we turn it off. Turn the blades off the mower off and buckle. How do I get down? Three points. Three points of contact, right? You don't want to jump off. You don't want to not hold anything. I think pretty I would want to say very common, but probably more likely going to happen. We've seen a few times in the ground department is when they're getting off the mower and they're not using three points of contact and they either step on the deck or the grass when it's wet, they slip or fall. So that's how we had some sprain ankles before. We've also had really bad bruising because they fall and they hit something on the mower. Right. So I'm off of it. I'm done. Right. If I have to clear anything, right, I want to make sure the mower's off, right? Blades are disengaged. I'm going to stick my hand underneath there. And any other PPE I should wear? Gloves. Gloves. Right. You want to make sure you wear your gloves. And if I'm walking around, maybe I have to inspect it. Something might be wrong. What What other precautions should I take? There's things I should touch

edge of the blower. I should avoid things that get hot, right to the metal and all.

All right. For those who have experience driving the mower, do they miss anything?

Yeah.

Yes. You should raise them when you're not mowing. Yeah. So, yes. Make sure you raise the blades up when you're not mowing. put them down when you're using them. Did I get it? All right. Anything else? Any questions before we move on? All right. Let's come over here.

So, now we got the UTV. Okay. You don't have to wear all this. You're not necessarily going to need hearing protection on the UTV, right? Make sure you're still wearing the same clothes that you're working on it. Um, before you go driving this thing, is there things you should inspect on it to make sure it's good? Tires. Tires, right? Make sure the bed's good. Make sure the tires get air. Make sure these are kind of getting worn down. We want to make sure the tires have good tread on it, too. Or else you should contact your direct supervisor. You get those pull out stuff. What's that? Pull out the wheel. Yeah, that'd be a good idea, too. We want to take care of it. Same, too, because if this thing's running right, it be safer to use, right?

Couple other things. Got seat belts. So, make sure you're wearing seat belts. Same thing. thing you don't want to get knocked out of the UTV. You get a bump or on a slope, fall through. Same thing like the mower. If you're on a big hill or slope, you don't want to ride on the side of it. You want to go up it or down it, right? You don't want to tip.

You guys know what the speed limit is?

I heard it was 20. Could be wrong, but last year told me it was 20. So, don't want to go any faster than that. You want to stay at designated roads, paths, unless you're told otherwise, right? Where you guys are going.

You're driving around. What should you guys be looking for? Other vehicles. What else?

Be other people around, too. You don't want to run into people, right? What should you not be doing when you're driving this thing? Phone. Phone. Right. Thank you. Avoid all kind of distractions. And if you got to transport stuff with you, where should you stick it on the seat? All right. You put in the bed, right?

When I got things loaded on the bed, do I want back up or down? Yeah, you want it up to secure it. And then depending what it is, right? If it's something that's not very heavy, the wind can take it, you want to make sure it's secured down some way. Ratchet straps, rope, whatever you can to kind of keep down. Park over it. You don't want things flying out the back when you get hurt or going forward if you have to stop.

Any questions, UTV?

Transcript for Tractor & Farming Implement Operation

Okay. All right. Well, welcome. So, I I'm Dr. Aaylor. So, I'm a professor in agon bioengineering. Uh this is Ashley. Ashley is a master student that's studying with me. Uh so, I have the fun station today. And so, I get to talk about tractors and machinery. So, uh, what we're going to do, we're going to talk about some hazards with the tractor and and working with different types of implements that that might be attached to it. Um, so, first off, how many of you are going to be, you know, working here at Acre, maybe doing the the transpler? Yep. Okay. Several of you. Any of you actually be driving machinery? One or two. So each group has about four or five six people who actually going to be working on this end and then usually one or two is going to be working on this end. So uh we're going to hit the safety of of both sides. So um this is where I usually start with this. So what do you think is probably the biggest safety hazard uh in a home or apartment especially maybe for an elderly person? What do you think causes somebody to go to stairs? Stairs. stairs. So, what would that what would that hazard be? Falls. All right. So, I want you to keep that in mind. Slips, trips, and falls are are one of the number one hazards in your homes. It's also true that it's one of the number one hazards in agriculture. Um, take for example this morning, we had some rain and the grass was wet. We have shiny nice uh uh slick metal uh that make up our steps. And so slips and trips are easy, especially when our our shoes get wet. So, um, there's a couple ways or a couple things we do to prevent that. So, the first is how do we kind of get on and off of machinery. And so, here's what you need to keep in mind there. We always maintain three points of contact. You're always facing the machine. So, two hands and a foot. and that will hopefully reduce the likelihood of you slipping uh on and falling off of the machine. Okay. So, uh we have a handhold, we have several steps, and then we'll talk about uh how do we get on and off our transpler here in the back. Um the problem with safety speeches, safety stations, is that we tend to talk about too much doom and gloom. Like, you do this, you'll die, you do this, you'll die. If you do this, you might die. Uh, so I'm trying not to do that for you, but I just want you to kind of see uh really what are some things that we need to keep an eye out when we're working around these things. So, uh, the first thing we're going to do, and the first thing you need to do whenever you're working around machinery is we do a walk around. Okay? We need to walk all the way around the machinery, all the way around the tractor or the and the implement and see if anything is really out of sorts. So, if we look right here in the ground, we have a puddle where something has leaked some hydraulic fluid in the past. And so, I'm not here to teach you to be a a master mechanic uh after today, but I am asking you to say, "Oh, hey, I recognize maybe there shouldn't be a big puddle of something under this this machine, right? Or uh look for any type of maybe broken part or or something that is missing. uh low tires, anything like that. You know, things that are pretty obvious. Okay, so we're going to do a walk around. Here's the other reason why we do a walkound. Um there's a lot of you here today. There's a lot of employees. There's a lot of faculty and staff. Uh this isn't like, you know, when I go home to my farm, I have to watch out for like three people. And here, there's like 200 of you here today. So, there's a lot of people around. So that's the other reason for a walkound is whether or not somebody's working on this. Maybe somebody's installing a sensor or repairing something. Maybe somebody is in the middle of the job and there's tools still left out in the middle of the job. So that's the point of the walkound. And those are things that you would see doing that. Uh Ashley shared with me before you guys got here that uh this weekend on her farm, they had to do a lot of watching for uh her 2-year-old cousin. So, I want you to treat, you know, acre or TAC or wherever farm you're going to go work at or do research at. I want you to treat that like you're always looking for a two-year-old. Okay? So, it'd be it'd be good practice for you. But that's how we're going to treat working farms is that is there a two-year-old nearby? I better look. Okay. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to do a walk around. And while we walk around, we're going to look for some common hazards. And so, we're going to go this way and we're going to look at our transpler. Um, and we're going to look for some hazards that you think would be something that we should kind of keep our eye on.

Anybody see anything hazardous here? What's your Okay, there's a cover up over there on that end. Yep. Sitting on the seat. Anything else?

Is this thing like is it made out of pillows? It's nice and fluffy. All right, there's moving parts. So, let's talk about moving parts. So, this thing is uh ground driven. So, you see we have two large tires there. And attached to the tire, you see there's a sprocket and a chain. The chain is going up. It's turning a central shaft and it's going to a gear box here. And from that, it powers each one of the metering units. Okay. Uh, so these chains are powerful. Uh, I know probably some of you may have maybe gotten the inside of your pant leg in like a bicycle chain before and yes, it might tear your pants or something. Well, this is going to be less forgiving than that. Um, and then another station you're going to go, they're going to talk about appropriate dress. Um, so this is why they tell you to wear closed towed shoes and not flip flops and stuff. So growing up, um I I grew up in southern Indiana and in in the spring we would plant tobacco from a transpler and uh so not too different than this plot planter here. Uh but anyways, a friend of mine, a neighbor girl, she lost a toe or two uh because she was wearing flip-flops and these chains or mating parts create a pinch point. And so, uh, she wasn't wearing the right type of shoes, which is why you will always wear the right type of shoes working here at Purdue. Uh, and and she stuck her foot someplace it shouldn't been. Uh, so that comes down to two things. One, appropriate dress. Two, making sure that the appropriate shielding is in place. Okay. All right. So, we talked about pinch points and and gears and sprockets. Uh what other hazards might you find here? Sharp corners, right? There's a lot of lot of hard angles, a lot of unforgiving steel and iron that is just it's not going to move. Uh you will. So anyways, yes, sharp corners. So that's why I mentioned earlier the slips, trips, and falls. Uh that's why we maintain three points of contact because these seats, you know, they're they're over my head. Uh, it's not gonna kill you, but I I certainly want to fall from it. Uh, so anyways, there's our slip, strips, and falls. So, sharp angles. What other hazards?

Anything else? I love it. You Well, I don't love crush hazards. That sounds pretty morbid, doesn't it? Uh, but that is a very good observation. So, crush hazards. So, let's talk about crush hazards. I'm going to use this this field civator over here as an example. So, You see that our shanks are up out of the ground over here. What's holding this thing up out of the ground? What? It's not the springs. The springs are not holding up out of the ground, but we'll talk about springs in a second. So, we'll come back to that. Hydraulics. Hydraulics. What are hydraulics? Anybody have any idea what a hydraulic system is? That is that is 100%. Yes. Hydraulic systems. We pressurize oil uh to a very high pressure and we send that pressurized fluid through the hoses and we go to different things and in this case through this hose we're going to this hydraulic cylinder. When we pressurize this side that's called the piston end. We extend out the rod and when that extends out it pushes the tires down which raises the whole thing up. It's also what's keeping this thing folded and unfolded. That's we do that from hydraulics. So, there's a couple things that we need to know here. We never get under anything that is supported by hydraulics because if there's ever a leak or a break in a hose or anything like that, it can come down. So, remember how I said at the beginning, I don't want to like just be overly morbid and talk about death. Well, that's a cause of death. So, we don't get under anything that is supported up by hydraulics because they can come down. Um there's a second case or a second issue of hydraulics. We love hydraulics in agriculture. It does great things, but we have to be aware and cognizant of a couple hazards. So what's the second hydraulic hazard besides maybe something coming down like high pressure? High pressure. All right. And high heat, but mainly the pressure we're worried about here. Um anybody have any idea how much pressure a hydraulic system has? Would you say 100? Probably a thousand. A thousand. Uh, I'll give you a couple numbers just so you can put this in relationship. Air pressure in your car tires around 35 PSI. A truck is around 50. If you have a road bicycle, that's around 100 PSI. Water pressure in your house is around 50 to 60 PSI. If you've ever used a pressure washer, uh, they're around 1,500 to 3,000 PSI. They're very high pressure. Well, this tractor and that tractor, all these tractors are around 3,000 PSI. That is a lot of pressure. Okay. Now, what can that pressure do?

Well, it can cut you or it can give you a hydraulic injection. Uh so, both of those are really, really bad because tissue and oil do not mix. So, if you ever see a leak, uh, you don't try to find it with your bare hand. You don't really try to find it at all. We're going to depressurize and we're going to look for it later. Uh, 3,000 PSI, it can shoot hydraulic fluid into your tissue or it can actually cut you. And, uh, so that's why we we want to respect uh, hydraulic systems. If we ever break a hose, well, the whole thing can come down. So, there's our crash hazard. Uh, while we're on the topic of stored energy, and somebody already mentioned this, here's the other form of stored energy, which are springs. So, a lot of you, you're not going to do a lot of mechanic working, you know, like switching out components, but you might work a little bit with, you know, changing parts on a on some type of of testing plot or or instrument. So, I just want you to be aware of stored energy in forms of hydraulic and spring pressure. Let's go back to our our plot seater over here. So, I mentioned hydraulics. So, hydraulics is going to cause this thing to raise and lower. It's going to cause our arms to I mean our markers to unfold. Uh if we look at this hose here, we see some oil on it. So, at some point there was a leak. Uh those are things that you're going to look for in your walkound. Okay. What other things do we need to look for? This thing is not attached to one. But what powers uh mowers and tillers and and implements like that? How do we get power to those types of things? PTO shaft. PTO shaft. So a PTO stands for a power takeoff. And so that shaft is right there in the center where it hooks up. Uh basically safety around PTO's is very simple. You don't get close to one. Uh if it's running, you don't approach it. um 10 foot 12 foot is what a lot of manufacturers recommend but if it's a mower mowers can throw things and so most manufacturers recommend 300 foot on a mower so uh the safety part is do not get close to any turning shaft uh especially PTO okay uh we've talked about slips we've talked about trips we talked about falls pinch points crush hazards hydraulic hazards PTO shafts. Uh, here's something in the last couple minutes before they blow the horn that I really want you to rec to recognize. Um, the operator of this tractor, it's noisy. They can't hear if you could be yelling at somebody, they might not hear you. Okay, so here's the thing you need to keep in mind. You maintain eye contact with the person before you approach or before you get off this thing. You make sure you have their attention and you're making eye to eyee contact and you say and they might not hear you, but you can use signals. It's like, "Hey, stop or or whatever." Uh, you need them to do, but do not approach or do not get off without making that eye contact because when you're making eye contact with somebody, it's saying, "Hey, I need to tell you something." Okay, so that is key, especially in noisy environments. The last thing you need to know, and odds are you'll never have to do this, but I want you to know it. For some tractors, it's different than others. How do you turn this thing off? If you need to shut off this engine, how would you do it? Do you think you could turn off this engine? A key. All right. So, I I like that. So, the key So, it's kind of like your cars, trucks, SUVs. You just turn off the key and the engine shuts off, right? Uh that's true for all these newer like the combines and the newer tractors like this. Um but if I turn the key off on this tractor, it doesn't turn off the engine. It shuts off the electronics and the engine will keep running. So older tractors, this is built in the early 80s. Older tractors like this have a knob on the dash. And so as we do our walk around, I want you to see this. There's a red knob up here next to the steering wheel. It's about an inch in diameter. What that does is if you pull up on that red knob,

it shuts off the fuel and kills the engine. So if you ever need to shut this thing off and the key doesn't do it, you pull up on the red knob next to it and it'll kill the engine. Last thing, as you walk to your next station, you notice that there's one seat, one seat, one seat. We do not do more than one person in one seat. So nobody rides on fenders, steps, or any place other than a seat. Um it's just a big no. All right. Yes, sir. Exactly. Yep. When you're sitting in these stations and in the uh seater or any place seat belts, there you can see there's nothing there to really hold you in that seat besides that seat belt. So, same as when you're in your car or any vehicle, wear your seat belt. Thank you very much. All right, I'm going to show you where your next station

Transcript for Corn & Soybean Innovation Center

So, my name is Jason Adams. I manage this facility. If you're working here at the Purdue Farm, you have access to this facility. Um, the doors are unlocked from 7:30 to 5. If you think you need access after hours, uh, just let me know. I just need name, email, and, uh, your Purdue ID number, and I can give you access to the facility. uh restrooms and break rooms and just you know good place to come in and cool off if you're working here. All right, we're going to go through the different rooms and I'm going to show you some different things. So, this is the break room. Uh like I said, everybody has access to it. Uh vending machines, uh refrigerator and freezer. Uh don't get them screwed up. Pop machine or the Cokes in the freezer explode. I get mad. Um, not sure if they've talked about it already, but here is the display for the uh pesticide and herbicide re-entry. Uh, just kind of a good thing to glance at. Uh, the custodians clean the floors and that's it. Uh, it's your responsibility, hopefully not my responsibility, to clean up the tables and the countertops. I have cleaning supplies on by the sink. I will disinfect them in the morning, but as a general rule in this room and the rest of the facility, uh your mom doesn't work here. Clean up after yourselves. You know, not my job. It's certainly not the custodian's job uh to clean up, you know, your major messes. They just kind of come in and do the day-to-day stuff. Uh I realize we work on a farm, you get dirt and mud on your shoes or in the treads of your shoes. Um, it's the mud that rolls around on top of your shoes that gets tracked in the facility. Uh, that's when I know you didn't try to wash at all outside or use the brushes and that's when I'll talk to you. But if there's brooms in all the rooms and dust pans in all the rooms, if you make a mess, clean it up. All right. All right. To the next. So, in the intersection of the hallway is one of the AEDs on the farm. Um, if somebody's having a cardiac issue, of course, call 911. Know where you are on the farm. Um, most everybody knows how on their phone, probably better than I do, of looking up locations. Um, but come in here, grab it, an alarm will go off, I'll go running with you. But there are a few people on the farm that are trained to use it. Um, the restrooms are the farm storm shelter. Um, again, it's a good idea to have key card access. Storms, you know, don't always come during business hours, but the two restrooms just pile in there. Uh they've been used before as a storm purpose. Uh almost all the rooms have lab safety showers and lab eyewash. Uh the two restrooms also have kind of walk-in showers. If you feel you've been contaminated, you're certainly you are allowed to use those. Uh this bottom locker down here is uh has washcloths, towels, um and Tyveck suits. If your clothes are contaminated, you can uh you know, put on the Tyveck suit that gets you home. I don't need them back. They're all yours. Purdue will get me more towels and Tyveck suits. Um the floor has been used several times as a cooling station. Um, it's amazing how comfortable a concrete floor can feel after you've been outside to tassling or or walking the fields all day. You know, as long as you're not making a mess and in people's way, I don't care. But I've come out of my office more than a few occasions and seen this whole floor lined up with a lab of just kids cooling down. Um, water stations, water fountains, you know, sinks for washing hands throughout the whole facility. If you need a locker, let me know. I'll get you access to a locker. A lot of labs have their own lockers that they share the combination and they kind of keep supplies in. So, I know everybody in this group isn't going to be working in this facility. Um, but a lot of the things I'm going to say here pertains to all the buildings on the farm. If it pertains to all the buildings on your farm, um, the big hazards are uh, slips and trips. So, if you spill seed, clean it up. If you see cords or hoses on the floor, you know, try to uh reroute them the best you can. Uh this is the receiving room for the facility. Um the keys for the forklift are locked up. If for some reason they're not locked up and they're in the ignition, that still doesn't mean you're trained. Come find me. Uh come find some of your technicians that are trained if you have things that need to be put on a shelf or or taken off the shelf. Again, water station here in the facility. Uh this room, eyewash stations are in this room as well. So, this is the threshing and shelling room and the small room behind you is the grinding room. Uh this is where things can get a little dangerous. If you're working here during hours or after hours, um it's better to work in pairs, especially after hours. Uh almost all the rooms by one of the doors has a little sign posted that tells you where you are. It's the address to the facility. Um, if there is an accident, you know, call 911 and get somebody here if you're here after hours. Um, the main hazards on this equipment is, you know, putting your hands where they don't belong. Um, it's a good idea to have your hair pulled back um for entanglements. Um, there's compressed air in this room. So, if you're using compressed air, um, you know, safety glasses are a good idea. Uh there's dust masks, safety glasses, earplugs, and then I got ear muffs in uh over here on this wall. Um if they're not comfortable or if you prefer something else, you know, contact me, contact your lab. Uh Purdue will buy something that fits properly and feels comfortable. Um it's, you know, almost everybody has something in their ears anyhow. Uh I don't really have to tell people that anymore. CO has kind of made face masks easier. Before COVID, it was hard to put get people to put dust masks on, but people have learned now that, you know, you can still wear them and function. And most people have learned in the grinding room especially that wearing a dust mask is perfectly fine. Um, the threshing and shelling line, if somebody's working in here and you hear screaming, um, the red buttons on the trunk line here, not so much these, just start hitting red buttons. Um, it'll eventually turn off all the equipment in the room. So, if somebody else is hurt, you don't have to go around and unplug their equipment. Just hit a red button. Um, one of your main responsibilities in here as well besides safety or running the equipment is if something smells bad, sounds bad, doesn't feel right, turn it off. Let me know things break, things wear out. If you broke it, I don't care. Um, I'll fix it. But just do not leave it for the next person. Um, let me know. Uh, the yellow box on the wall is lockout tagout. If you want to put a plug cover on it and a lock on it, please do so. Um, at the bare minimum, unplug it. Put a great big note on it that says broken. Do not use and then come find me and then, you know, I'll lock it out properly and fix it. But just, like I said, do not let it go for somebody else to use. Again, dust, noise, hazardous blades, that's the big thing in this room. So, this is a shared lab space. Uh you can kind of come in here and use the uh space as needed. If there's not space for you, let me know and I will create space in this room or another room. Um, what I didn't mention in the last room we were just in, um, all the equipment in that room and the counters and different equipment in this room, you reserve in eyabs online. Um, it's kind of a a gate to make sure people aren't just coming in and using it. It's a way for me to make sure you're trained either by me or somebody in your lab. Um, this small room back here is a seed treating room. Uh, it's really the only room in the facility. I do not allow food and drink in. If your lab is okay with you having water or snacks at your table while you're working, then that's fine with me as long as you don't make a mess. Um, you guys kind of know the work you're doing. If you shouldn't be eating and drinking while handling something, then you know, your lab will certainly tell you that. But, um, again, it's the only room. Yeah, I won't allow food and water in. Uh again, safety showers here, eye wash stations here, lots couple sinks to wash your hands. Uh more hearing and eye protection in this room as well. Uh the safety data sheets are on this wall. If you are bringing a chemical in, I need the safety data sheets. It's a way for the emergency personnel to know what you're using and uh how to treat the emergency if there is one. So, if you get key card access to the facility, you just use your phone on the the card swipes outside. Um, if your lab needs you to get access to the sensor storage room or the cold storage room, um, I'll also check those boxes off that you have that access. Um, the cold storage and the sensor storage are locked all the time, uh, regardless of the business hours. Um, I do want to mention the cold room. Once you're inside of it, that door locks again. There's a little red touch pad inside there. It doesn't look like a button. It doesn't feel like a button. And when you touch it, sometimes you hear a click, sometimes you don't, but just touch the button and put your elbow in the door or your shoulder in the door and it opens. Um, there's also a foot pedal that sets off a very wimpy alarm. It sounds like your refrigerator door has been left open. I may or may not even hear it from my office. But the pedal, it also releases the magnetic lock. So, they've added a second way in case the touch pad does go out, which it has before. Um, have your phone with you, call 911, and just kind of hunker down or call your lab if it's during the hours. Uh, this room here is just like the last room we were just in. Uh, the main hazards in are your slips, trips, and falls. Uh, there is an ice machine in there. Uh we also have ice in the freezer in the break room. Uh the ice for in this room is just for sampling, plant seed sampling. Um the ice in the freezer, you're more than welcome to. I have a scoop in there. I just want to put out that a lot of hands go in there. So feel free to not use it if you don't feel like it or dump it out to get fresh ice. All right, so it's time to switch. that I want to mention real quick. If you want to take a picture of my name and number and email, if you feel you're doing something unsafe or told to do something unsafe, contact me. Um, there's also a Purdue 1866 number here you can contact. Now, if you contact me in July and say, "I'm out here dassling and it's hot," I want to say, "That's what they hired you to do." But if your lab manager out there is telling you to do another round without a drink of water, let me know. Let Rachel know. If there's lightning all around you and they tell you to do one more round, let me know. I'm not going to go say so and so told me. I'm going to drive out there and say let's get inside. Just I don't think anybody's going to make you do anything unsafe. But Phil, you can contact me. You can contact Rachel. You can contact Purdue. Okay.

Transcript for UAV Operation

Oh, good morning. Is it still morning? It's still morning. Uh, my name is Adam. I actually work for the extension service uh through Purdue with Digital A. I've been a drone pilot since 2018. And uh I guess I was asked to come out here today to talk about some safety tips uh out here on the farm as air traffic with drones has kind of been on the increase out here. Um, you know, between researchers and some other folks and these crazy extension guys out here flying around, uh, we want to make sure we're doing it safely, right? Today's all about safety. And so, how do we do some things out here, uh, to make sure we mitigate uh, potential problems? You guys can come around here. We got got some topics here. Um, so, uh, Rachel and Jason and I kind of put some put some ideas together, uh, some topics that we feel are important, uh, for you folks as you're operating out here. Do I have any drone pilots in the group? You are. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Great. Uh, anybody else think they'll do some drone work out here? Maybe do some imagery capture with drones some. Yeah. So, technically, you don't have to have a drone pilot's license to fly a drone. Um, as long as somebody with a license is standing next to you, you know, they can hand you the controller and let you do the flight. Um, but they need to be standing next to you. So, if there's an emergency situation, they can take it back and take control. So, if you get the chance to do some flying out here with somebody, man, take advantage of it. Get some stick time. enjoy the experience, learn how to do it. Uh it'll be a good time. Uh but just some rules that we, you know, are not not uh so much rules, but some guidelines, some things that we want to uh make sure you're considering before you fly is number one, we don't fly over people. This is an FAA regulation. Anybody have any idea why that's a rule? What do you think? Exactly. It's safety, right? If this is technology, it's processors, it's chips, it's batteries, it's all kinds of things that just really do well in heat and dirt and moisture, right? So, if something fails and it falls out of the sky, we don't want to be over people. We don't want somebody to get hurt. So, we stay away. If you pull up on a field and there's people out there scouting and working, you know, don't take off. Maybe wait for them to leave or talk to them. see what you know if they can step out so you can fly or or communicate with them and work with them. Uh so we don't we don't want to fly over people. The other side of that is if you are out working in the field and somebody starts to fly a drone over that particular part that you're working in, you know, you might want to step out, go find the crew that's doing the flight, uh and maybe figure out if they're going to be long or maybe they're not in the right spot or let them know that you're working out there. you know, communicate that you're, you know, you're supposed to be out there and we can't have the drone flying over while that's happening. But that leads to point two. So, if you're um out there working and and there's a drone operation, that drone pilot, he's got he'll have a controller like this. It'll be pretty obvious to spot, but they'll be operating. He'll be looking at the controller, looking at the drone, you know, back and forth. As a drone pilot, we don't just sit here and stare at the controller. We got to be looking back and forth and so we don't want to interrupt them. Um, you know, there's a lot of air traffic around here, a lot of things, power lines, cell phone towers, those kind of things that can be a problem. So, we want to make sure they're focused on what they're doing. So, don't startle them by coming up behind them or off to the side. Just just kind of leave them alone. Let them finish their mission uh before you before you communicate with the pilot. Uh, so like I said, generally there'll be another crew member or somebody that you need if you need to talk to them, but leave the pilot alone until until they're done doing um their flight. Uh, we also want to watch out for overhead objects uh or obstacles. So, you know, there's not a lot out in the field, but if you get down to the north end of the farm, there's those transmission lines. Uh, up here on this end, there's tree limbs, some other power lines, those kind of things. Uh the obstacle avoidance sensors on the drones are great for bigger objects, but when it comes to tree limbs or power lines, they maybe not always sense those. So, as a as a pilot, uh using drones, you know, you always before you take off, take a look around, see what's going on above you, make sure you're safe to rise up to altitude uh and perform your operation. Does anybody know? I know you guys, some of you do. What What's the legal height that we can fly drones in the federal airspace? How high can we fly? 39 something. 390 is close. 500. That's too high. What do you think? You got your license, you said. Yeah. Huh? 400 feet. Yes. So, we can fly 400 feet. 390 is a good place to set your drone. So, it gives you a gives you a good buffer. Um, so we can fly 400 feet. Manned aircraft are supposed to stay above 500. So in theory, we should have a 100 foot buffer between where our drones are flying and where manned aircraft are. But we are blessed here to have the Purdue airport just a couple miles southwest of us. So as we are out here working, we seem to have increased air traffic uh heading that way that is also losing altitude as it's flying over. So we cannot always uh you know count on that buffer and so we need to always always always be watching for manned aircraft and we have to get out of its way whether that is stopping the mission and lowering the drone. Um, unfortunately sometimes we've had to go above the manned aircraft which gets a little hairy but we whatever we have to do to avoid contact with the manned aircraft. And the other the other thing that happens you know as we look at uh late June through July is fungicide season. And so when we get to doing uh crop duster flights around here, you know, those guys uh in order to gain altitude with an airplane full of liquid, uh you know, going to a field that takes fuel and energy, right? And they want to get to their field and get their application done and get back to the airport and land to refill again. So in order to minimize their usage of fuel, a lot of times they you've seen them, they only fly maybe above the treetops uh stay very very low as they're fairing to the field and back. So again, they're manned aircraft. We always have to yield to them that time frame. Extra eyes, extra ears, extra vision. Make sure you're listening for them and and uh looking for crop dusters to avoid interaction with those guys uh because they they do uh do not adhere to the normal FAA rules. One thing I always do, I have an app on my phone uh flight radar that shows me where aircraft in the area are and their elevation. So, as I'm around here, I generally have my phone open with this hand. I've got my other hand on the pause button mission um or pause mission button so that if something is getting close I can pause the mission. My down stick is right here. I pause it, drop the drone down. So always watching those two things to make sure uh you know we avoid that interaction. I don't know if hot air balloons or gliders or powered parachutes are much of a thing around here. Uh but again, those are manned aircraft that we have to uh avoid. Uh Jason and Rachel wanted me to mention if for some reason your technology does fail and falls into somebody's plot and it's not yours or you know the researcher you're working for, uh check with Jason or Rachel to see whose plot it is and we need to get permission before we enter in there and recover the drone. Um, same thing if we were flying, you know, at a out in the field for somebody and the drone crashed in somebody else's field, we need to get permission from that land owner to get on their property to recover it. Same thing around here if we're in the flying over somebody's plot. We don't want to disrupt that research by walking in there and causing any damage. So, we want to communicate with them how to how to best recover our technology. I mentioned that the the spray drone applications are going to become more prevalent. Has anybody done spray drone work application before? So, we've got three of these now uh in the Purdue system. Um so, you're going to see more of this activity around uh doing testing u with with product dispersement and flows and different things uh with these spray drones. So, uh, be aware and if you're asked to help with those applications, um, you know, just make sure you're wearing proper PPE for the products that you're, uh, loading or mixing. And then these things take a lot of a lot of space uh, to take off and land. So, just keep clear. uh if those uh propellers are spinning and you get too close, they can really lacerate your skin uh tear up your clothes uh and cause injury. So, make sure they've stopped spinning. And again, you'll probably see a pilot with a controller or something like this around close. And so, you might want to look at them and maybe get a nod that it's okay to go ahead and approach the drone uh to make sure they're not getting ready to spool it back up and move it somewhere uh closer or whatnot. So just kind of keep communication between you mixing and loading um and that pilot to make sure you know you're not getting hurt. uh the proper records. Uh I ask my educators in extension to fill out an air table form for me. Uh so we know where they're flying, latitude and longitude, the date, uh what are the weather conditions like, what are what crop are they flying, what drone are they using, is it a manual airplane flight, uh you know, asking to jot down a lot of things. is not because I want to be nosy or micromanage, but just because if there's a problem, the more data I have, the better case I can make that we were doing things properly. So, you know, we want to make sure if you're flying out here, you kind of collect that information and keep it so that if there's if there's an issue, you know, we can we can help u make sure we were we were on the up and up. I put on here no TAMs. Uh that's a noticed air missions. Uh that's a part of spray drone applications that kind of gets overlooked. Uh so if you're doing a spray drone application or working with someone who is, you know, you might just mention, hey, did we issue our NOTAM? What that is is it's an online uh registration. So before an application, you put in where you're going to apply, you know, what the date is, um how long you're going to be there, how high you're going to fly, those kind of things. and it lets other aircraft know that there's a spray drone application happening in that area at that time. Um, and it's just part of the FAA regulations in our part 137 and we have to do that. Uh, so we just want to make sure that's done properly. And then the other part I put on here is our Lance application. So again, the Purdue airport, the southeast corner of this farm, kind of from the Beex building where you guys started out this morning. uh up around through the equipment uh sheds and out towards the trailer court uh is still restricted airspace for the Purdue airport. It's class D airspace. So, if any flights are going to be happening up in that area, we have to get a lance approval. Now, it's it's just a matter of of filling out some information on an app and as long as you stay, you know, in the parameters of that area, I think I think we can still fly 400 ft there, but we have to get the approval. As long as you say that through the through the application process, you'll get an instant approval. Just keep a screenshot of that or the email to to show that, yeah, I went ahead and got my approval. I'm good to fly in that restricted airspace. And I guess the last point, uh, you know, communication is key, uh, to keep everyone safe. If you're going to fly out here, Jason Adams, you guys just did a tour with him, met with him. His office is up in the front of this building, you know, he needs to know, uh, he kind of coordinates the flights or who's flying out here. Uh, so he needs to know like your pilot number, um, your, uh, registration number of your drone, and then kind of an idea on, you know, a couple days ahead of time what dates you're thinking of flying out here. So, he knows, you know, if if Griffin's out here flying or another researcher close to where you're going to be or, you know, the extension crew is out here doing crazy things. Um, you know, we need to kind of coordinate to make sure we're not going to be flying right on top of each other, uh, or have a possible accident. Uh, the other side of that too is is risk management. Uh, so, uh, Dave Truit is our risk management lead for extension and our drone program. And so letting him know that, you know, what your drone license number is, the drone reg any drone you're going to fly, that registration number, uh that keeps us legit for risk management. So if there is a problem or an accident out here, um and risk management doesn't know that, you know, you that you had a drone or that you were licensed to fly, you know, then we might have some problems with not being covered. So, those those two areas we want to communicate with. Um, you know, make sure we're we're safe and legal. Um, the LA another thing that I I didn't put on here, but I get a question a lot is on weather. Uh, you guys, I think already obviously the last station, so you've talked about weather already. Um, I get a the question I get is on wind, flying in the wind, and there's not a FAA regulation on wind speed. It's more just personal preference and what you're comfortable with. Um, you know, I don't like to fly much over about 25 mph winds, sustain speed. Um, to me, it just really puts the airframe in a lot of pressure uh to try to keep it in the air, a lot of torque, but some colleagues, you know, they'll fly 35, 40 mph winds. So, it's more personal preference on the wind speed. Uh there are two areas that are legal issues that I've ran into out here with weather. Uh the first one is cloud cover. So always always always check the weather report from the Purdue airport and see what your restricted cloud lay layer is uh because we have to stay 500 feet below the restricted cloud layer. So if the you know the cloud layer is at 800 feet, I can only fly 300. So those are that's one thing I always have to check. And then fog, you know, we can't fly in fog because we have to maintain visual line of sight of the drone. So if it's foggy out, we can't fly. So clouds and fog are the two weather weather issues that I run into the most. And I heard the horn. You guys have questions, I'd be happy to answer them, but I know it's I think lunchtime for you all, so I don't want to keep you. Any questions? Did I miss anything? Good. Okay.

Transcript for ACRE Resources & REI Information

Thank you all for coming. Um, thanks for uh being good listeners to our our speakers and our various sessions this morning. Um, up next, Jay and I are going to do just some brief um info on acre and TAC, just things that you should be aware of. Um, and then Jennifer is going to talk to you about situational awareness and slang. Um, and then after that we will have lunch followed by I think there are about a hundred of you signed up for the WPS training after. So that'll just be right here in this room. So um, stay put for that. Also that is a typo 12:30 to 1. It's 12:30 to 1:30. So keep that in mind. Okay. To start you off with some um acre resources, I wanted to provide two links for you guys. So, these are things that I would recommend you go ahead and scan and save to your phones. The first is a map of acre. This is a map that you can save in your Google Maps app. So, when you are driving around the farm, if um your supervisor sends you to a field and you're not sure you're in the right spot, you can pull that up and see if your little pin is um in the field that they have requested that you go to. It also has pins for all of the buildings on the farm. So, if someone says you need to go to AC57 and get um some material out of one of our dry air bins, you'll be able to look up and know where that building is at. It also has pins for bathrooms, for REI postings and things like that as well. And then the second one that is very important is our Acre REI info. So, um this is for all of our spray applications at Acre. This is the link that will tell you when it is safe for you to reenter that field. Um, we have this posted in a couple physical locations, but I recommend always, you know, before you even come out to the farm, look at it. Make sure that you are okay to be in your field before before you even drive out here. So, um, this is also linked on our website. So, if you look under the AER website at spray applications and click that link that says air table, that's that same link. So, if you lose that link that you just scanned, um it's on this website as well. And then I just wanted to show you a snapshot of what that looks like. Um so, this is posted um well here, let me it is posted in these two locations where those stars are. So, um, it's physically on the screen in the break room of ICSC and it's on a screen in the break room of the research building. So, if you get out here and can't pull it up on your phone for some reason, you can look at it in person at one of those two locations. [laughter] And this is what you'll see. I've had a couple people ask me how to read this and interpret this. So, um, I just wanted to go over that real quick. That first column you see is the date that we actually did the spray application. So you'll see a date and a time. The next column is where that application took place. The third column is what products were applied in the field. Sometimes those products um are a mix. And so that's what you see as that next column is the actual product names and rates. The column after that that REI interval is the listed REI from the label. So you you'll see a 48 12 24 and then that last column is the one that is going to tell you you can reenter the field after the specific date and time. So here's an example. Um, you can see on May 12th at 1:30 in water quality field station, we apply dual ground up and 240 that has a 24-hour REI, which means you can go back into into that field on May 13th at 1:30. So, any any questions on that? Does everyone understand how to read read this? Yep. So, this is very important. Um, it is your and Jennifer will cover this in WPS, but it is your responsibility to look this information up to make sure that you are being safe, that you are not entering a field that has had a recent uh pesticide application. So, please uh keep yourselves and your teammates safe by always checking the REI before you head out into the field.

Transcript for TPAC Overview

So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about Throck Morton and also the mix horiculture facility that's located on Through Rock Morton. A little bit lower tech acre, but we're getting there. Uh so obviously any of the farms you go to, you know, you know, you need to have know where you're going. So if you got to call 911, you spit that address out quickly. Um but there's emergency contacts uh for TAC. basically have three areas that have safety uh and notification information. We'll start with TMO4 that u that's crop processing building. If you've been around for a while, people call it the cooler bar. That's where the coolers are for the fruit vegetable storage. Uh TMO8 is the farm shop. Uh that's where the offices are. Um and then TM18 is the pesticide research facility where storage sprayer bays and also lab that tack is located.

So in TMO4, that's where you're going to find AED. We have AED both at TAC and at EGS, obviously first aid kit. Uh there's eyewash bottles in different buildings throughout the farm. That's also where our spray information center is. Um you can check in there see what uh fields are being sprayed when the reis are. Basic rule of thumb is if you're in any of the Purdue a centers are acre. If it's not if your plots aren't in that field don't go in it. Uh there's no reason for you to be in any other field. Best example I can give out at MIGS obviously we had fruit. Um we had students one day were out wandering around in the apple trees. When you're in the apple trees we can't see. Well guess what? We were spraying in there with an air blast sprayer track nearby. Got we had no idea they were in there. They shouldn't have been in there. If they had checked, they know we were going to be spraying in there. So, always uh check the information. If you aren't supposed to be in that field or that area, especially if you're in a fruit and vegetable setting or fruits, we can't see you when you're in there, especially when everything's leaked out. Uh in the shop, TMOA, obviously have first aid kit available, eyewash bottle. You can also pick up earplugs there if you need them.

And then we also have a safety shower drywire station inside the lab in TM18. Uh that's available if you need it. And real simple over at MIGS. Everything's in one building. That's where the offices are. A lot of the equipment storage have different address. There's two addresses involved with TAC. So you got to know where you're at. Then of course Brian and Bill's contact information for those that work at MIGS obviously in a couple weeks when all the students are finally on board. U we'll have a student orientation for all those that work at MIGS and this information will be available to them too. So at MIG we've got first aid kit and eyewash bottles. That's also where you'll find the AED and the spray records are posted on this board. Uh the other thing we do because we have the fruits out there, we do a lot of cover sprays. So like in apples, there's 24 sprays that go on all season long. So we also have these placard boards we put in the lanes to notify you, hey, you need to check or don't go in the apples, but if you have to go in the apples, check the spray board to see when it's safe to go back in. So there's a lot of cover sprays that go on with fruits. So that's about it. Sweet and simple.