FFA Soils
The Rensselaer FFA Chapter has competed in several soil judging competitions and invites throughout the school year. In a soil judging competition, 4 individuals are placed on a team. You work as an individual, but your scores are combined together to find out your placing. They spend an hour in a 5-foot-deep pit. While in the pit, they must examine the texture, structure, drainage, slope, and soil erosion.
The Rensselaer soil judging team competed at the Area Soils competition on September 25th, with many teams placing well. Three out of the five teams that went placed for state. The teams that are heading to state is the Masters Team who placed 2nd in that division, FFA #1 placed 2nd, and FFA #2 placed 5th. The other teams that competed were FFA #3 who placed 7th and FFA #4 who placed 8th.
Masters Team (State Bound):
Brock Hurley (1st place)
Dalton Wilson (4th place)
Kendra Kohlhagen (9th place)
Connor Albritten (11th place)
FFA #1 (State Bound):
Sloan Claussen (3rd place)
Hunter Robinson (5th place
Chloe Jordan (9th place)
Brooke Schuh (11th place)
FFA #2 (State Bound):
Will Beldon (8th place)
Holdyn Dutz (18th place)
Abigail Jordan (23rd place)
Charlotte Jordan (27th place)
FFA #3:
Chase Van Meter (16th place) State Bound
Danielle Honeycutt (19th place)
Alicia Conley (44th place)
Griffin Alson (49th place)
FFA #4:
Ryan Kellner (14th place) State Bound
Evalyn Sorba (31st place)
Dillan Simmons (41st place)
Mckenzie Martin (47th place)
I asked Brock Hurley about his thoughts on this contest. He said “I thought it was really good and well ran. The teams that competed all did great.” The teams that advanced will head to Southern Indiana to compete in the State competition.
The State Soils took place on October 12th. Out of the three teams one team will be moving on to the National Contest. Team FFA #1 placed 5th overall in State, so they will head to the National Contest held in Oklahoma in April.
FFA #1 (National Qualifier):
Brooke Schuh (17th place)
Hunter Robinson (22nd place)
Sloan Claussen
Chloe Jordan
Rensselaer FFA #2 (23rd):
Ryan Kellner
Will Belden
Charlotte Jordan
Masters Team (6th ):
Dalton Wilson (6th place)
Brock Hurley (9th place)
Kendra Kohlhagen
Chase Van Meter
Congratulations to all the soil judging teams! Mrs. Freeman said, “These kids have worked very hard this fall and did very well at the contests.” Soil judging is a great competition to get into and allows you to learn about the importance of soil for human use.
