Workers endure heat while collecting soybean samples

It’s the hottest week of 2014 and Hilda Garza and David Ewens are working out in the sun wearing pants and sweatshirts in a soybean field near East Grand Forks.

“I like the weather here, it’s a lot fresher here than Texas,” said Garza, a migrant worker for Dow AgroSciences. She and other workers wear pants, sweaters, scarves and hats to prevent skin damage.

Garza and Ewens are just two of nine workers punching holes in soybean leaves. The small samples taken from the leaves by the crew are placed in vials and shipped to a laboratory in Indianapolis for DNA testing.

 “We’re trying to get the best soybeans for the farmers,” Dow AgroSciences Technologist Kay Foley said. “The job only lasts a few weeks. It’s not a strenuous job, but it’s very tedious.”

The crew starts its day at 7 a.m. in a 20-acre field and work Monday through Friday.

Foley, Garza and Ewens agreed the heat of the summer can definitely be bothersome while on the job.

Though sun may be exhausting, Garza and Ewens keep coming back - both marking their second year of leaf-punching for Dow.

“The heat is the worst part. But we look forward to this job, we work as a team. We love this little crew,” Garza said. 

1/2: Mari Cortez punches a soybean leaf as part of work a crew is doing in a research plot for Dow AgroSciences near East Grand Forks Monday. photo by Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald

2/2: Mari Cortez, foreground, is joined by (from left) Clarissa Garza, David Ewens, Martha Cantu and Cecilia Villarreal gathering samples of soybean tissue that will have the leaf DNA analyzed by Dow AgroSciences lab in Indianapolis. Photo by Eric Hylden/Grand Forks Herald