ANNA — The Anna FFA recently competed in the district level soil judging contest, and their rural team placed 12th overall.

The contest was designed to see students’ ability to test different soil types. The contest was split into two sections: agricultural and urban.

The agricultural soil judging was based off of the student’s ability to evalute soil for slope, texture, living organisms, structure, depth of topsoil and drainage. Then, students used observation to determine what management practices would be useful for that soil type, if the soil was going to be used for farming.

The students that participated at the district agricultural contest were Garhett Keener, Andrew Berning, Bryce Jenkins, Andrew Millhouse, Dylan Siegle, Carter Beam, Kyle Evans and Aubrey Hoying.

The urban contest sites were evaluated for ability to support buildings and homes. The students who competed tested for slope, flooding, texture, drainage class and depth of bedrock. They identified useful management practices specific to septic systems, basements, driveways and lawn and garden settings.

The students on the urban team were Maggie Steifel, Emily Bertke, Liz Michael, Lauren Barhorst, Derek Wolters, Keith Berning and Camryn Wilson.