V. SOIL EVALUATION CONTESTS AND RESOURCES

Local Arrangements     Next Section>>

Area contests rotate among counties within an Extension Area, and an Extension Educator is primarily responsible for local arrangements because the contest is a 4-H activity. The Conservationist assists with finding a suitable farm or other property, and the Instructor makes arrangements for high school facilities, but not with technical arrangements, because his or her team probably will compete in the contest. These tasks must be done to have a successful contest:

• Find a suitable site. This is usually done in cooperation with a Soil Conservationist in your county who knows cooperative landowners. The site should have a variety of soils and should be accessible to a backhoe. Public land, pasture land, and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land work well, but other areas are satisfactory.
• Arrange for a backhoe to dig at least four pits for the contest. Sometimes it is learned, after the backhoe leaves, that the soil in a certain pit presents problems for soil evaluation. In these cases, an extra pit is desirable. Most Conservationists know contractors, farmers, or state or county highway people who have a backhoe, and often the work is donated.
• Have available eight slope stakes (steel fence posts, wooden 2x2s, etc. about 5 ft. long; two for each site), eight yardsticks with holes drilled, and some nails to fasten the yardsticks to the face of the pit. If the slope stakes are too tall for a short contestant to use, paint a band on the stake, or wrap colored tape around it. The tops of both stakes at a site, or the colored tape, should be at the same height above the soil surface.
• Provide stakes or boards on which to mount the site card (see the example at the back of this book) at each evaluation site.
• If it appears that the water table in a pit may be high, it will be helpful to know where planks, concrete blocks, old pallets (sawed in two), or straw could be obtained.
• Have a few buckets or boxes available to hold soil material for evaluation when properties are borderline. Contestants must furnish their own water for estimating soil texture, slope-finders, and color charts.
• Arrange for site monitors to supervise the site during the contest and collect scorecards. In some cases, an adult may accompany each group of contestants as the groups rotate among the four sites.
• Schedule people to grade scorecards, tabulate results, calculate scores, present awards, and do other tasks that may arise. Some of this work can be done by machines. On the scorecards, the numbers and letters that represent alternative answers are arranged to allow for scanning by a machine such as a Scantron. If it is used, also arrange for the necessary hardware, forms, and pencils. Scorecards, award ribbons, contest report forms, etc. will be sent from the 4-H office.