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San Marino 7th-Grader Wins State Writing Award

Writing award winner Allyson Wei of San Marino flanked by her parents, Drs. Shirley and Ted Wei Writing award winner Allyson Wei of San Marino flanked by her parents, Drs. Shirley and Ted Wei

Allyson Wei of San Marino recently won the state writing contest for 7th-graders in the Imagine This … Story Writing Contest.

Wei, 13, attends San Gabriel Christian School. She is the daughter of Drs. Ted and Shirley Wei of San Marino and the granddaughter of Dr. Chau-Po and Noly Wei, founding members of the Chinese Club of San Marino.

Her winning entry, “Strawberry Troublemakers,” is about a girl on a commercial strawberry farm in California who helps her family fight off an infestation that is threatening the crop.

The contest was presented by the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom, which provided young authors with medals, e-readers, books, artwork and resources for their teachers. Wei’s teacher is Clarence Atwater.

The winners were selected from more than 8,000 entrants in grades 3 through 8, and were recognized for their creativity, writing skills and positive interpretation of California’s agriculture industry. Wei was the only champion from the southern half of the state. 

The students were honored during a special ceremony in the Governor’s Council Room at the state Capitol. Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, along with several legislative members and staff representing various districts throughout the state, were in attendance.

Hundreds of California teachers participated in the annual contest by assigning their students the task of researching an aspect of agriculture and challenging them to incorporate these facts into their own creative story. The success of the contest is bolstered by meeting state English-language arts teaching requirements and by providing an opportunity for students to explore topics of which they previously had limited knowledge.

“We are excited to recognize these students for their writing achievements and their better understanding of farming through the Imagine This… Story Writing Contest,” CFAITC Executive Director Judy Culbertson said. “We encourage the students to continue learning about the vital role agriculture plays in our daily lives.”

The contest’s purpose is to promote reading, writing and the arts while furthering the public’s understanding of agriculture. Stories are posted online at LearnAboutAg.org/imaginethis. For more information, contact Stephanie Etcheverria, program coordinator, at (800) 700-AITC.

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The Winning Entry: ‘Strawberry Troublemakers’

By Allyson Wei, San Marino 7th-Grader

My name is Harper and I live on a commercial strawberry farm in California with my dad and my little sister, Jillian. Commercial farms are plantations that grow crops mainly to sell. My family is not the only one that lives on the farm. We have many workers that help grow our crops. It’s good for them because they get work and are paid for it. Also it’s good for us because we get help picking and taking care of all our strawberries!

I have always loved strawberry-picking season. We harvest in the winter when the strawberries are lush and ripe. To pick strawberries, first, you choose a strawberry that has a juicy red color. Next, grab the stem just above the berry and pull. Then, place the strawberry carefully into a container until you can put them in a storage house. The temperature in our storage house is about 32-35 degrees. After that we package them by pint or quart containers and cover them with a plastic film to protect the strawberries inside. Finally, we ship them off into the world.

Our family loves to eat strawberries. Strawberries on pancakes, strawberries in salad and strawberries on dessert! Once I even asked Dad if I could get sick from eating so many strawberries. He just laughed and said, “Of course not! Strawberries have plenty of vitamin C; it boosts your fiber, and helps you fight problems such as cancer and arthritis!”

One day, as Jillian and I were goofing around in the strawberry fields, Jillian shrieked. I quickly ran over to her, hoping that she wasn’t hurt. But all I saw were a bunch of little brown bugs crawling all over the strawberries.

“What are those?” I cried out.

“I don’t know! We should tell Dad,” Jillian replied. Then we sprinted home to inform our dad.

That day during lunch we talked about it.

“So you found a bug,” Dad said as he plopped a strawberry into his mouth. “Did it hurt you?”

“No,” Jillian replied, “but it might have hurt the strawberries.”

“Dad, do you think the strawberries are damaged?” I asked, worried about them.

Dad used to be an exterminator, but when he found out we could buy this farm, his eyes lit up. Then he gathered all our life-savings and bought it. If our strawberries died, not only would we be wrecked, but also all our workers would be out of a job and would have to find work elsewhere.

“I don’t know for sure, but we can check it out right now,” Dad responded, standing up and putting on his coat.

Jillian and I followed him outside and took a look at a few strawberries. “Look at all these bugs!” Jillian cried out, pointing at multiple strawberry plants.

“Oh, no,” Dad muttered.

“What is it, Dad?” I asked, now extremely concerned. What if all our strawberries died? What would happen if we lost everything?”

“Those are lygus bugs,” Dad answered, hanging his head down and rubbing his forehead.

“What do they do?” Jillian asked, with a fretful sound in her voice.

“Well, lygus bugs damage strawberries by poking into the seeds and sucking out all of its juice. The lygus bugs will make our strawberries irregularly shaped and unusable to sell.”

“Unless we get rid of them!” I remarked, trying to bring his spirits up.

“True, but it’ll take a lot of patience and work ...” Dad replied, starting to look more cheerful, “Would you be willing to help?”

“Sure!” Jillian and I said spontaneously. We would do anything for our dad and our farm.

Later that day, Dad, Jillian, the workers and I sprayed Pyrethrum on the plants. Pyrethrum is an insecticide spray made from chrysanthemums. It’s toxic for the insects but not for us. We sprayed the strawberry plants every two to three days, making sure we killed all the lygus bugs.

It was hard work because we needed to spray every plant possible, so no bug survived. In the end, all the lygus bugs were gone, and only a few strawberries were damaged. So our strawberry farm survived and everything went back to normal. But, if we hadn’t been able to control the bugs, all our workers would be out of jobs and we would have to start all over. So I’m glad we stopped the insects before a strawberry catastrophe happened!

 

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