FFA National Soil Judging Is a Unique Experience

by Austin Uppena

Hundreds of buffalo and prairie dogs, the search for armadillos, red dirt that stains everything it touches, very good food, and really crazy weather. These are the memories I recall the most from my trip to the National Soil Judging Contest in Oklahoma.

On Sunday, April 28th, 2019 at 11:30am my father pulled the school van out of the high school parking lot on the way to Oklahoma City with myself, Nick Edge, Brittany Horner, Evan Bloyer, Marissa Mayers, and Megan Roesch. The advisors/chaperones on the trip, Tracy Brunton, Jason Edge, and Mike Uppena, were thrilled to put up with us in the car for the next 12 hours. On the way there, we kept busy by sleeping, snacking and making fun of each other; also on the way, Evan Bloyer made a vow to see an armadillo.

The van arrived in Oklahoma City at 11:30pm. We found our hotel and went right to sleep. The next day, Monday the 29th, we had a free day to explore and sightsee. We started off the day visiting the biggest Bass Pro Shop in the world. The Bass Pro Shop was located in the Bricktown district, which is known for its river walk, exquisite restaurants, and state of the art triple-A baseball field. We went to a nice restaurant after the Bass Pro Shop and got to eat amazing food and have some sweet tea, which is better in the south. Everyone would have gone to a triple-A baseball game afterward, but it got rained out, so we went back to our hotel. For supper, we headed to Nick Edge’s Uncle’s house. John Edge fed us brats, hot dogs, burgers, and razorback. While we were there, we practiced soils, rode his rangers around his land, and played basketball.

On Tuesday the 30th, our group ate really good food and practiced in multiple soil pits. In a soil judging contest, you categorize the soil by texture, structure and usage. You also judge the quality of the land and find the slope of the land, which is how many feet the land rises in 100 feet. The first thing we practiced was finding the slope. Our supervisors helped us and made sure we knew what we were doing. After doing slopes we headed over to the actual pits to practice judging Oklahoma soil.  A pit is a hole about waist deep. You use the pit to help determine factors like how well crops could be grown and how well water drains in the area. When soil judging, you must also judge the area around the pit which is called the pit area. The pit area is very important in determining what the land can be used for based on the things you find there, like whether it can be used for pasture, cropland, tree production, or if it would be best suited for wildlife habitat. You should also be looking for any kind of water features like lakes, streams, or rivers. Water can change the determination of what special features you may need to install on your land, like riparian buffers or dams. There were six different pits to practice at and we tried them all to make sure we were as good as we could be. It started to absolutely downpour on us just as we were leaving to go back to our hotel. That night, we ate at IHOP. While we were eating the weather was very crazy. The sky was orange and there was a weird, unsettling feeling in the air. There were tornadoes in the counties surrounding us, so I guess we were lucky they didn’t get close to us.

Wednesday, May 1st was another practice day. On Wednesday however, there were only two pits to practice. These pits had sandy soil which can affect how the water gets used in the soil. Sandy pits can be a little harder to judge because we don’t see them very often in a contest in Wisconsin, especially in the Southwest corner of the state. Practicing these pits was very important because the contest on Thursday had a few pits with sand in them. Our group finished the day off by mini golfing, then eating at a famous steakhouse that is over 100 years old. However, after mini golfing and before eating at the steakhouse, we did a group study session where we looked over the official soils book and judged pits on paper.

Thursday, May 2nd was the day of the contest. It was a very busy day that started at 6:30 in the morning. We woke up and scrambled to get to the contest registration site. After our team got registered, we waited for all of the other teams to register so we could travel to the contest site as a group - all 160 teams had a police escort for the 45 miles to the contest site. The contest was located on an Indian reservation Northeast of Oklahoma City. It was very interesting to learn about the Native Americans, how a reservation is run, and see what a reservation looks like. There was a lot of land left to nature. As we were driving through the reservation there were hundreds of buffalo and prairie dogs. It was very cool to see these animals because we don’t have animals like them in Wisconsin. There were, however, no armadillo yet for Evan to see.

Once we arrived at the contest site, we were divided into groups, and each group was given a pit to judge with 20 minutes at each pit. After every 20 minutes, the groups rotated until everyone had judged each pit. We were given lunch while the judging cards were scored. After eating, we changed into FFA official dress and went to Remington race track back in Oklahoma City. We were given a tour of the facility, learned all about horses, and what happens before, during, and after a race. Afterwards, we got to visit the National Cowboy Heritage Museum where the awards ceremony would be taking place later that night. We roamed around the museum until it closed, then waited for the ceremony to start. We placed 75th out of 104 FFA teams; not as good as we would have liked, but still pretty good for learning how to judge Oklahoma soil in just a few months. Teams that placed high have been judging contests very similar to the National Contest for years.

We traveled 4 hours north to Emporia, Kansas to stay the night and reduce our travel time on Friday. Friday morning we woke up at 6:15, ate breakfast, and climbed into the vehicle we would be trapped in for the next eight hours. We slept most of the way and bothered each other during the time we weren’t sleeping. We wanted to throw Marissa out of the van and Evan could not cross seeing an armadillo off of his bucket list, unfortunately.

The trip to Oklahoma was a great learning experience for everyone involved. We worked hard to learn Oklahoma soil and had fun doing it. There were so many landmarks, animals, and unique places our group got to see. There was really never a time besides the seriousness of the contest where we weren’t laughing or smiling. The most important thing we took from the trip were all of the memories we made because of the special opportunity we had to go to Oklahoma.