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Sunday, September 28, 2014

Region V Soil Judging: Day 1 - The Goplerud Family Farm in Kossuth County, Iowa

Our team left St. Paul at 0900 this morning and drove to Britt, Iowa, where we met with Phil Schroeder. Phil is an excellent agronomist with a deep knowledge and interest in soils and glacial geology. In addition, Phil is a graduate of Iowa State University - he currently manages the Goplerud Farm near the town of Wesley, Iowa. The Goplerud farm has land holdings north and south of the Algona moraine, so the team was able to see differences in two different parent materials, with glacial till on the north side of the moraine and some areas of glacial lake sediments south of the moraine. The team completed two auger descriptions of Calciaquoll profiles.

Landscape of the Algona advance, Des Moines Lobe:
Looking south over the Algona moraine in the distance.
Auger description of a Calciaquoll, Goplerud Farm, Wesley Iowa

We arrived in Ames around 5:00pm, went to the grocery store and checked into the hotel. By 6:30 we were on the ISU campus eating dinner provided by our ISU hosts. We received a lecture on the soils and landscapes of Iowa from Dr. Lee Burras (ISU) - tomorrow we get to work in the pits!