By Megan McCoy

On Sept. 29 the Buckeye Central FFA participated in Crawford County Soils Contest. Students from Buckeye Central, Wynford, and Colonel Crawford FFA chapters competed in two separate contests: Rural Soil Evaluation and Urban Soil Evaluation.

The Rural contest included evaluation of soil properties, which allows students to make Best Management Practices recommendations to the landowners. Some of these recommendations include cover crops, crop rotation, grassed waterways, as well as soil compaction and drainage control measures.

The Urban contest involved students evaluating the soil properties for the purpose of making Best Management Practices for building a home with a basement, installation of sewage treatment systems, building driveways and roads, as well as installing lawns and landscape features.

In the Rural Contest, the Buckeye Central FFA chapter beat out Wynford and Colonel Crawford for the second year in a row, and the Urban Team from Buckeye Central won its fifth straight County Crown. The top five individuals in each contest from Buckeye Central will now advance to the District 2 Ohio FFA Soils Contest on Tuesday in Huron County.

This year’s Rural Team that will be competing at the District contest includes: Adam Krebs – 1st in county, Derek Kalb – 3rd in county, Makayla Aichholz – 5th in county, Mason Stahl – 9th in county, and Grant Bishop – 10th in county.

The Urban Team competing at the District contest for Buckeye Central will be: Payton Phenicie – 2nd in county, Wade Ackerman – 3rd in county, Tori Miller – 4th in county, Caylie Bean – 5th in county, and Kennah Corfman – 8th in county. Makayla Aichholz was the 1st place Urban Soil Judger at the county contest and chose to participate in the District Contest in the Rural Division.

This makes a third trip to the District Contest for Derek Kalb, and a second trip for Makayla Aichholz and Tori Miller. In order to advance to the State Soils Contest the teams will have to place in the top five among 20 teams at the District contest. Last year Buckeye Central won both contests at the District level and placed 3rd in the State in Urban and 11th in Rural.

“It was a fun contest,” Caylie Bean said. “Soils is one of my favorite contest to participate in.”

“It was my last time participating in county soils,” Miranda Wurm said. “We all tried our best and it was a good learning experience for the underclassmen.”