Rodger Farr, Kolby Grint and Samantha Teten, University of Nebraska–Lincoln agronomy majors and members of the soil judging team, along with 14 other team members from the School of Natural Resources, placed third overall in the 2016 Region V Soil Judging Contest held Oct. 9-14. This qualifies the team to represent the region in the National Soil Judging Competition to be held April 2017 in DeKalb, Illinois.
Soil judging provides an opportunity for students to learn to describe properties of different soils and associated landscape features and interpret soil information for agriculture and other land uses.
Prior to the contest, students are asked to describe the soils in practice pits. Descriptions include particle size, horizonation, soil morphology and structure. On the day of the contest, students are asked to describe soils in pits they have not seen. Each student describes two pits individually and then they work in teams to describe an additional three pits.
Jacob Ziggafoos, agronomy graduate student, served as assistant coach along with Rachel Stevens, graduate student in mechanized systems management. Rebecca Young, School of Natural Resources lecturer, served as coach.
A total of 67 students from UNL, Iowa State, Kansas State, University of Minnesota, South Dakota State and Southwestern Missouri competed. The contest was hosted by the university, School of Natural Resources and Nebraska Society of Professional Soil Scientists.
Ariana Brocious with Nebraska Educational Television created a Signature Story on this year's Region V Soil Judging Contest. See full story at https://go.unl.edu/2016soiljudgingteam.