Wednesday - Wow what
a different a day makes.. 60 degrees this morning at 7:30 when we correctly
departed the motel to go to the organic farm.
WVa established this organic farm a number of years ago to help the local organic food
industry in the state with some research.
We have 5 soil pits in this area.
We did the first one as a team and they were excellent scoring 95%,
which is almost impossible. They next
looked at a very channery pit next that had a C above the Cr. They struggled with the Bw horizon under the
Ap, but then so did the official judges.
Next at the footslope position was a perfect example of a
Fragiudult. This soil has a fragipan, or
cemented pan at 3 feet. This pan stops
roots and water thus the bottom of the pit had water, so Nora used the barefoot
technique to explore this area of soil.
The team again did a great job scoring 91%. Looking at these soils again after three days
of looking sure makes it easier for their descriptions. We have two sites left after lunch, which we
came back to the motel for, as the sites are only 4 miles away. Before lunch I picked up some new hand towels
for the contest tomorrow as our towels are getting pretty dirty. Lunch
was a breakfast sandwich, yogart and canned peaches. I also cheated and got a Starbucks coffee.
Lunch is over and so is the passing thunderstorm. We head out to our final two sites. We work on our next to last to practice
individual competition. The team still
is having trouble with rock fragment determination in terms of percent. They estimate 60 when there is 30 and 20 when
there is 80. Oh well, the official soil judges
get to use the official taped area and we don’t, must be the difference. After this pit where they actually do pretty
well, we move on to our last sight and I convince the team they can do this
site without touching the soil, based on the fact that they have done 20 other
soils that are similar. The horizons at
this site are Ap, Bt, BCt, R. They do
the whole sheet and get it mostly correct basing their decisions on their
experience from the past 4 days of practice.
Now hopefully tomorrow they will touch the soil. The individual team contestants are Blair,
Katie, Melissa and Nora. Tom will be our
alternate and not be able to judge the individual sites as alternates did an
the regional. Too many teams here for
the alternates to judge. He will get to
participate on Friday in the Team event.
We arrived at the Banquet with all
the other teams and entered the livestock pavilion. It had a fresh layer of woodchips on the
floor so was not too smelly. After a
while we got to go first through the line and found chicken, pulled pork, beef,
3 kinds of beans, potato salad and coleslaw with a blackberry cobbler for
dessert. It was pretty good and did have
something for the vegans, though we were not sure about the bean’s broth. After dinner the band played on and Jim our
host introduced important people who helped with the contest. We
soon headed home around 9:30 and did some review of our practice sites for an
hour when the coache’s old eyes gave out and he declared it was time for his
bed. Busy day of grading score cards lie
ahead.
