Atwood FFA Land Judging
by Amber Sharpe
October 20, 2006
The Atwood FFA headed to Norton on Wednesday September 20th to participate in the Northwest District Land Judging contest. The Greenhand Team received fifth place with a combined score of 665. Greenhands are members in their first year of FFA. The top three Greenhands from Atwood were Anna Reinert, Wendy Fields and Kevin Wolters. The senior team received 7th place. The top three members from Atwood were Keegan Peckham, Sara Miller and Marcus Cahoj. There were 26 Atwood FFA Members participating in this years contest including Alex Bebb, Jill Bergling, John Binning, Marcus Cahoj, Wendy Fields, Mark Green, Garth Griffith, Dagan Holliman, Eric Holub, Andrew Huntington, Sean Jordan, Sami Leitner, Wesley Martin, Kayla McCain, Josh Memmelaar, Max Mickunas, Sara Miller, Jordan Mizer, Sara Molsted, Keegan Peckham, Anna Reinert, James Remely, Zack Ruda, Leah Sharp, Nathan Stoney, and Kevin Wolters.
Land Judging requires the students to evaluate the land based on slope, flooding, texture of the soil, permeability, erosion, and the shrink/swell of the land. After they determine all of the above information they have to make recommendations on the conservation practices and the possible uses for the land. There are six trenches dug that the students walk into and judge. There is a lot that goes into land judging and it takes a lot of memorization and general knowledge about the land and the contest. This is a great contest to begin the year with and the students have a lot of fun meeting and visiting with others after the judging is over and learning about all the uses and types of soil in Kansas.
