Welcome to two new cropping systems Extension Educators who started this month: Katherine Caswell in McCook and Michael Sindelar in Clay Center.

Katherine Caswell

Caswell will be in Red Willow County and also cover Hayes, Frontier, and Hitchcock counties. A native of southern New York, she was active in 4-H, showing rabbits and dog. Through 4-H an interest in crops and livestock was sparked.

Caswell received both her degrees from another Big 10 University – Penn State. Her bachelor’s degree was in agriculture science with minors in agronomy, animal science, and poultry and avian science. Her master’s degree was in agronomy, focusing on weed science and integrated weed management. Most recently she worked at Colorado State University with an interdisciplinary group on a grazed cover crop study for dryland systems. She focused her data collection on weed management, forage quality, and cattle performance.

“My main interests are in improving and diversifying our cropping systems, while supporting producers with research-backed solutions. I’m also interested in developing producer-driven, on-farm research in my area,” Caswell said.

“I’m excited to be a part of the UNL Extension team, even if I’ll always be a Nittany Lion at heart!” Caswell said.

Caswell, who goes by “Kat,” can be reached at the Extension Office in McCook at 308-345-3390 or by email at kat.caswell@unl.edu.

Michael Sindelar

Lincoln native Michael Sindelar will be covering cropping systems responsibilities in Clay, Fillmore, Nuckolls, and Thayer counties.

He was exposed to agriculture at a young age when his father would take him to the family farm near Richland in Colfax County to “help” with the farm work. He joined the Navy in 2005, working in military intelligence as a cryptologist collective (CTR) until 2010. He was stationed out of Hawaii and spent a year in Afghanistan where he collected intelligence and conducted combat operations.

"After having fun for a couple of years I got my act together and earned a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from the University of Nebraska. This spring I completed my master’s degree in agronomy with a specialization in soil and water science from the University of Nebraska. I spent most of my master’s degree studying how changes in soil management affect soil water storage, recharge, and heat storage/transfer through the soil.”

Sindelar can be reached at the Extension Office in Clay County at 402-762-3600 or 402-762-3644 or by email at msindelar2@unl.edu. He notes he still signs “most of his emails using V/R which is a carryover from the military meaning ‘Very Respectfully.’ ”