By Brett Vanden Hoek
Four high school students – juniors Mariah Vos and McKinley Conover and sophomores Tessa Van Maanen and Caitlyn Bartholomew – represented Lynnville-Sully and the L-S FFA Chapter very well at the FFA District Soils Contest on Tuesday, Sept. 27, in Knoxville. The team came home with a third-place finish out of 29 participating schools.
Vos also received a plaque congratulating her as a second-place overall individual finisher. Van Maanen got seventh, Conover got tenth, and Bartholomew got 40th.
L-S Ag II students have been preparing for soil judging for a couple of weeks, even participating in a practice soil judging contest. First, the class read through textbook soil sections and took notes. Then, Mr. Brian Lowry, ag teacher and FFA advisor, set up a hands-on activity with different types of soil.
Lynnville-Sully’s third-place overall finish made them eligible for state soil judging, which will be held Saturday, Oct. 8, at Iowa State University.
“I think soil judging is a great way for kids to understand and learn about what different types of particles make up soil and how there are many different types of soils,” said Lowry.
He also thinks it is very important for FFA and ag students to understand good soils from bad soils because the different types of soil play a big role in crop growth.
At the contest, soil judging organizers dig a trench for the contestants to enter and start evaluating what type of horizons appear and where the horizons are located. After the students classify all the horizons, they start to describe
everything about the horizons and record the information on a scorecard. Their answers are then looked at by professional soil judges and then graded on how the individual did.
“Soil judging can be rather tricky,” said Vos. “The hardest part is moving from one pit to the next because they are never the same.”
