Today was our final day of practice pits. We judged 5 pits at Missouri State's Southwest Research and Outreach Center. These soils were Paleudalfs, Fragiudalfs and an Argiudoll formed in alluvial sediments. On our final team practice pit, the group judged a Paleudalf formed in colluvium and residuum, scoring an impressive 334 out of 345 possible points! The group is nailing their clay percentages on these residual soils within 2% - hopefully we'll see more soils like this on competition day. What is very clear is that in addition to be very proficient individual judgers, our team works well as a group, allowing all opinions to be heard and making the best decision possible.
We had to bid farewell to our Assistant Coach An-Min Wu today so we took a group picture in the morning to preserve her contribution to this year's competition preparation. An-Min is headed back to Minneapolis via a 13 hour bus ride tonight. Her knowledge and background allowed us to exceed our expectations for developing this year's team. Thanks An-Min!
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| Group Photo (L-R: Coach - Nic Jelinski, Asst. Coach - An-Min Wu, Co-Capt. - Erik Schilling, Heather Ryan, Anna Hyytinen, Wyatt Behrends, Co-Capt. - Andrew Krinke, Jeff Tanaka) |
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| Individual judging of a Fragiudalf on a broad ridge/summit of a Fragipan landscape, Missouri State Southwest Research and Outreach Center). |
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| Fragiudalf formed in loess and residuum (Soil). |
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| Looking for redoximorphic features in a Paleudalf (Jeff Tanaka, Andrew Krinke, Wyatt Behrends, Heather Ryan) |
