Eaton MVCTC advances to State Soil Judging Contest
EATON — Yearly, Eaton MVCTC and many other FFA chapters across the state compete in the Soil Judging CDE (Career Development Event).
The Soil Judging CDE is a contest in which competitors go out to a designated competition sight and observe a dug soil pit and determine its qualities such as; slope, landform, texture, water table, depth to restrictive features, etc.
Then FFA contestants use these qualities to determine the overall risk factor, proper maintenance practices, and nutrient facts of that landscape area. What is unique about this contest is that this contest is broken up between two areas. FFA students must decide to compete in the Ag (Rural) soils or Urban soils part of the contest.
Annually, the Preble County Soil and Water Conservation District hosts a sub-district contest for all county FFA chapters. As a great educational, hands-on, learning experience, several county FFA chapters take a large number of the Agriculture Education students to this contest which is held during the school day. Each student gets an opportunity to evaluate the land and the soil by walking down, into the soil pit to examine the soil profile.
The top eight highest scoring members from each county FFA chapter advance to District Soils Contest. From there, the top four highest scoring teams in the district contest, consisting of the top 4, highest scoring individual members earn their spot at state.
Eaton, along with the other county chapters compete in sub-districts as well as district-level contest each year. In past years, Eaton has had challenges moving onto state level soil judging competition. However, this year, the Eaton Urban Soils team placed fourth overall at districts, allowing them to advance to the state contest. This team consisted of Mallory Deaton, who placed first overall individual at districts, Andrew Brooks, Gabe Hoff, and Kendale Hamilton. All team members worked and studied hard and had many practices on the weeks leading up to the contest. The students at Eaton who competed in these contests were under the direction of Eaton MVCTC chapter advisor, Mrs. Holbrook and Mr. Matt Deaton, a soil scientist at Deaton Soil Services. Countless hours were spent with Eaton FFA members inside and outside the classroom preparing the students for the soil pit evaluation and developing their general soil knowledge for the written portion of the contest. It is evident that all their hard work paid off.
The Ag Soils team placed 7th overall out of 47 other Ohio FFA chapter teams at the state contest held on Saturday, Oct. 13.
Eaton MVCTC FFA chapter would not only like to congratulate their members for their accomplishments in the Soil Judging contest but the other county schools for their achievement in the FFA soil judging contest. Congratulations to the following teams — agriculture soils district contest: Tri-County North, 5th; Eaton, 12th; TVS, 18th, and Preble Shawnee,-27th. Urban soils district contest: Eaton, 3rd; Preble Shawnee, 19th; TVS, 21st. Agriculture soils state contest: Tri-County North, 41st in team contest. Urban soils state contest: Eaton, 7th in team contest.
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