My name is Seth Ballance, and I am the new Commercial Horticulture Extension agent here in Richmond County.

I grew up in Wayne County on a family hog farm with 2000 sows and around 60 head of cattle. Growing up I was heavily involved in the Boy Scouts and reached the rank of Eagle in 2018. I recently graduated from NC State University where I majored in Biological and Agricultural Engineering Technology and received minors in both Horticulture Science and Extension Education.

While attending college, I had two internships and an undergraduate research assistant position. My first internship was with the N. C. Cooperative Extension at the Johnston County center where I had the opportunity to work primarily with the Commercial Horticulture agent and the Row Crops agent.

The following year I did my internship with BASF where I was able to work with the onsite agronomists running research trials comparing the efficacy of different formulations of chemicals. My research position allowed me to work with different fertilizer rates on a variety of both floriculture and vegetable crops. This position allowed me to become published on a paper about phosphorus rates on coleus, and be listed as a supporting author on a number of other publications that have not been released yet.

My passion for working with production horticulture and Extension stems directly from my experience working in Johnston County where I was able to get a deeper, more hands-on look into the world of production horticulture and Extension. My goal for the last two years of my time in college were to get into the N.C. Cooperative Extension so that I could provide service to the needs of a community and share the experiences that I have gained, and to continue learning through the constant challenges and changes in the world of Agriculture.

Currently, I am spending a lot of my time out at the demo farm at Sandhills AGInnovation Center (SAIC) in Ellerbe where I have been picking blackberries and planning for our fall high tunnel crops. I have been spending a lot of time trying to prepare by taking soil samples, adding fertilizer, and installing overhead irrigation.

Currently, we are planning to plant carrots, Bok choy, and fennel inside the high tunnel and broccoli and cauliflower in the plot outside.

My goal is to improve the demo farm to the point that the vegetables and produce that is grown can help to support the produce boxes given out by the SAIC while learning what crops grow best in the soil that is present here.

I plan to grow my community connections and be able to host workshops at the demo farm to help give people a hands-on demonstration of what methods that they can employ on their own farms and gardens.

My current interest is to explore drought resistant species and varieties of plants to see how they perform in the conditions that are present in Richmond County. By exploring new crops, methods, and infrastructure and incorporating it into existing systems, I hope that I can help farms to continue to be profitable and to help introduce people to nutritious, local foods.