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National Land and Range Judging Contest (Edited to add pics)

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WVGenetics

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Any folks on here or kids from your area down for the contests? As a newly minted county Ag agent , I have spent the last week in Oklahoma City practicing with my counties 4-H land judging team for the national contest tomorrow. Our now retired agent is actually coaching the team and I've been trying to learn the ropes (5 days on the job before we left). We've had some beautiful weather! I sure can say I don't miss the humidity. Hope you all are doin well.

WV
 
I never got the chance to go. Won Nebraska state range judging once, and was in the top 5, for 3 years. My team mates weren't so good. I kinda miss the plant ID, but sorta keep up with it, when I ride pastures. I can give you lots of tips, and names of great books if you want.
 
I think eight Missouri FFA teams are allowed to enter the contest. Several from sounderng states to Oklahoma as well as most of Oklahoma are allowed to enter. Out area FFA teams have done real well in the pasture evelation part. They say counting the rocks is the key. They say its more of a soils contest with pasture management added. At one time the contest was not really one of the highly sought after contests for Oklahoma FFA chapters but has improved. Even though its called a national contest I am not sure how many states send teams to it. IS it ran by Oklahoma SCS offices ???
IF your teams try you can do real well. Not as political as other judging contests. This contest has a adult division also...which is rare to other judging contests.
 
The best Range Judging contest, when I was judging, was the Old West Regional's. It used to rotate between, Wyoming, Montana, The Dakotas, and Nebraska. At that time all 5 states had the same rules, where the Oklahoma contest was more about land judging, and less about native plants, and plant ID.
 
In Missouri we had soils contest at a state level. My team qualified for nationals and went to the land and range contest. It was a completely different contest but we didn't fair to bad.
 
4Diamond said:
In Missouri we had soils contest at a state level. My team qualified for nationals and went to the land and range contest. It was a completely different contest but we didn't fair to bad.

I want to add that this National contest we are posting about has been copied alot in Missouri. For years they invited FFA soils teams to Oklahoma.
Missouri started its own grasslands contest that is copied somewhat of the Oklahoma contest but (READ THIS) is conducted by the state department of conservation. In short the Missouri Deartment of Conservation also begain a contest called envirothon that is another offshoot for these contests. The Envirothon contest is only for high school science classes and science teachers (not ag kids) . In my opion knowing people that do the Missouri Grasslands and Envirothon its just a tree hugger contest nothing more just with a rural lure.
 
Hay Feeder said:
4Diamond said:
In Missouri we had soils contest at a state level. My team qualified for nationals and went to the land and range contest. It was a completely different contest but we didn't fair to bad.

I want to add that this National contest we are posting about has been copied alot in Missouri. For years they invited FFA soils teams to Oklahoma.
Missouri started its own grasslands contest that is copied somewhat of the Oklahoma contest but (READ THIS) is conducted by the state department of conservation. In short the Missouri Deartment of Conservation also begain a contest called envirothon that is another offshoot for these contests. The Envirothon contest is only for high school science classes and science teachers (not ag kids) . In my opion knowing people that do the Missouri Grasslands and Envirothon its just a tree hugger contest nothing more just with a rural lure.

It's been 12 years since I went to Nationals.
 
If I got the scoop straight, are $H team was second and are FFA team was forth.
 
Well, we made it back yesterday after a little sight seeing on the trip home. Our kids did great! They won the 4-H land judging, tied for first in Homesite...lost the tiebreaker and ended up second. One of our boys won both contests as an individual. Couldn't be more happy so thought I would share a few pics of our travels.

First day of practice adjacent to the Oklahoma State Dairy
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Made it to the first pit
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Checking soil texture
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Then soil depth and erosion
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rechecking texture
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Lounging around
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These folks graciously let us use there place for practice the rest of the week.
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the owners residence
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high class bovine residence
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The Chisolm trial passed through here
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They are also home to world champion 6 and 8 horse hitches
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Good sign
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equine shower
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rather luxurious accomodations
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one of the steeds
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horse of a different color
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Fascinating pictures. Thanks for letting us go along with you on the tour, and congratulations on your team's successes in the range judging. Sounds like you had a productive adventure.

The Chisholm Trail crossing of the North Canadian River would scare the pudding out of me. I can't swim a lick. :( Glad they have invented bridges since then. :)
 
Soapweed said:
Fascinating pictures. Thanks for letting us go along with you on the tour, and congratulations on your team's successes in the range judging. Sounds like you had a productive adventure.

The Chisholm Trail crossing of the North Canadian River would scare the pudding out of me. I can't swim a lick. :( Glad they have invented bridges since then. :)

Me too. I can swim enough to get by but it doesn't compare to what those fellas did. You can't read the monument but it stated that during the peak of the use of the trail over 600,000 head came up the trail per year to the railhead in Kansas. Amazing!
 
In short the Missouri Deartment of Conservation also begain a contest called envirothon that is another offshoot for these contests. The Envirothon contest is only for high school science classes and science teachers (not ag kids) . In my opion knowing people that do the Missouri Grasslands and Envirothon its just a tree hugger contest nothing more just with a rural lure.

You couldnt be more wrong about the envirothon contest. It is a national program, with a few provinces from canada participating. There is alot of tree huggers involved in it, but if ag kids and FFA dont get involved we will be left in the dust. I was on a team that won the nebraska envirothon 2 consecutive years and we were all farm/ranch kids in FFA. One year we went to nationals in maryland the next year we couldnt go because of conflicting schedules with team members starting college. Envirothon included everything we learned in ag and FFA, range judging, soils, the only thing that we had no clue about was forestry and aquatics, but that is part of agriculture to. Get your facts right about envirothon and get your local ag kids involved. I am on our County Conservation Board and we are sponsering a FFA team for envirothon.
 

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