Juan Alcala

FCC Research Department Experience:

• Learned safety protocols and best practices for field operations.
• Familiar with all farms and sections.
• Inspecting cane stalks for quality and the correct variety.
• Support laboratory analyses such as NIR for sugar content.
• Utilize handheld devices and software (e.g., FieldBook, Excel, GPS units) for data entry.
• Used several tools (Caliper, Tape Measure, Micro NIR, Measurement Cups, etc) for multiple research and field projects to ensure accurate and precise data collection.
• Lead projects with a group of field technicians.
• Manual planting for experiment plot fields.
• Retrieved and examined Mechanical planting planted sugarcane billets to evaluate bud and eye damage caused by planting machinery, supporting efforts to reduce crop loss and improve planting efficiency.
• Collected harvested biomass using tarps positioned at the harvesters primary and secondary trash drop point, processed the biomass by weighing, shredding, bagging, and labeling samples for Lab analysis.
• Evaluated billet quality from different harvesters and new modifications conducted by research scientist.
• Soil property mapping using Electromagnetic Induction (EMI)
• collected soil samples from multiple field locations using a soil probe using proper sampling techniques.
• Great with any technology like cellphones,computers, fieldbooks. Also great with writing on papers.