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Tuesday, September 17, 2013

2013 Region V Soil Judging - Practice Pits Day 1

Today we went to the Henderson property about 40 miles north of Springfield and just outside of Louisburg, MO. We were able to get in 5 practice pits in very diverse soils. While all of the soils were Alfisols, we saw gleyed horizons, buried A horizons and fragipans. Our team worked well in groups of 3, pairs, and when judging as a group - our understanding of local landscapes and local description conventions has significantly improved.

First Practice Pit of the competition - a Paleudalf in the rain (Erik Schilling, Wyatt Behrends, Heather Ryan and Andrew Krinke)

Looking for redox features in a Paleudalf on a backslope (An-Min Wu)

"S" Horizon in a pasture (Cattle)

Judging a Fragiudalf on a broad interfluve with loess, pedisediment and residual parent materials (Heather Ryan, Andrew Krinke, Wyatt Behrends, Anna Hyytinen, An-Min Wu)

A loamy-skeletal Hapludalf in a floodplain - discussing the origin of the buried A horizon and whether or not redoximorphic features are present (Andrew Krinke, Erik Schilling, Anna Hyytinen, Wyatt Behrends, Jeff Tanaka)