October 30, 2003
AMES, Iowa — The Iowa State University soil judging team placed second in the group-judging division of the American Society of Agronomy regional soil judging contest on Oct. 23.
Erik Christian, a junior in agronomy from Story City, placed fourth out of 38 students in the individual portion of the contest.
Besides Christian, the team consisted of Amber Anderson, a sophomore in plant health and protection from Cherokee; Dan Nath, a senior in agronomy from Forest City; Jon Matz, a senior in animal ecology and agronomy from Algona; and Leah Wagemester, a senior in agronomy from Clinton. Jon Sandor, agronomy professor, and Skye Wills, agronomy graduate student, coach the team.
The Iowa State team placed fourth overall out of seven university teams that participated in the contest hosted by the University of Missouri.
During the contest, students wrote detailed descriptions of the soil layers, classified the soils, determined the geological characteristics of the site, made topographic and hydrologic measurements and interpreted soil properties for agricultural and engineering land use.