Alicia enjoys playing many sports, including basketball, volleyball, and track and field. She also sings in the choir and takes piano lessons. She plans to enter the plant science field. "I enjoy working with and learning about plants. My dream is to do research to benefit farmers," says Alicia.
Her science fair adviser, Mrs. Melass, is Alicia's mentor. "She has helped me understand the extent of scientific possibilities and opportunities."
Because her father is a farmer, Alicia wanted to choose a science project that would be helpful to him and other farmers in her area. She decided to work with a common weed, kochia, which has become an increasing problem to farmers in North Dakota. In her research, Alicia found that kochia has developed a resistance to the type of herbicide most often used on crops (ALS-inhibiting herbicide), making it difficult to eradicate. Alicia hypothesized that ALS-resistant kochia exists on her family's farm.
Alicia collected kochia seeds from two fields on Hall's Farm (Whelan's South and John Hall's) and obtained ALS-resistant and ALS-nonresistant seeds from North Dakota State University. She grew the kochia in pots divided into sections for each type of seed. After two weeks, she applied seven different herbicides to each type of seed and observed the kochia every other day for two additional weeks to measure the biomass of the plants and the herbicide effectiveness. Alicia's results showed that seeds from Whelan's South had the highest biomass and germination and that the John Hall's seed was the least resistant. Alicia concluded that ALS-resistant kochia does exist on Hall's Farm.
