2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest: Results - Gophers Take 1st Place Overall!

The University of Minnesota Soil Judging Team had an excellent showing at this year's regional contest - taking 1st place overall, 2nd place in group judging and three individuals in the top 10 out of a field of 80 participants: Riley Christopherson (9th place), Dustin Brooks (5th place), and Caden Gagnon (4th place). This dominant showing is a testament to the hard work and long hours this group put in, not only during contest week but well before. Many weekend field days, cold and rainy nights in tents during Field Study of Soils classes in the spring of 2025 and 2026, and previous travel to the spring 2026 NACTA and National soil judging contests made this an extremely experienced and motivated team. Congratulations to the students and thank you SO much to all of our donors for your support - you make these high impact experiences possible!

University of Minnesota 2026 Region V Soil Judging Team (1st Place Overall, 2nd Place Group Judging): (Back Row; L-R) Carmen McLaren, Gabrielle Holler (co-captain), Freya Personius, Shea Stein, Kylie Hughes. (Front Row; L-R) Riley Christopherson (9th place individual), Dustin Brooks (5th place individual), Caden Gagnon (co-captain, 4th place individual).

2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest: Game Day!

Thursday October 1st was Contest Day. Let's Go Gophers! 8 schools (South Dakota State, Minnesota, Iowa State, Kansas State, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Nebraska-Omaha, University of Missouri, Missouri State University) and over 80 students participated in the contest. The team completed 2 pits in the morning as individuals, ate lunch and transitioned to 3 group judging pits in the afternoon. It was a warm day, and we were judging soils from dawn to dusk - thanks to our contest hosts for choosing some amazing soils for contest day. Minnesota definitely felt at home in the forests of the Ozarks.

The UMN team ready to rock on contest day!

Dr. Kerry Clark (University of Missouri) getting all of the teams and participants organized

Individual judging pit 1

2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest: Practice Day 3

Our third practice day combined most of the concepts we had previously seen - a rocky fragipan on a summit, several soils formed in colluvium, and a new concept - a shallow soil over paralithic and lithic material on a structural bench. The team ended strong and in excellent spirits!

A Paleudult on a summit developed in colluvium, pedisediment, and residuum. The fragipan in this soil was detectable, but very rocky and challenging to identify due to the extremely dry conditions.

Gabrielle Holler and Dustin Brooks inspect a soil profile

Riley Christopherson and Freya Personius contemplate the challenges of Ozark soil descriptions

A shallow Hapludalf over weathered sandstone

The team in excellent spirits after the final practice pit. Let's Go!

2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest: Practice Day 2

Our second day of practice was at the fairgrounds just outside of Houston, Missouri. The team described three soils along a catenary sequence from the shoulder to a footslope on a gentle hillslope. The upper two soils both had well developed fragipans, while the footslope soil did not. We snuck in a team texture tournament during lunch!

Houston practice site landscape

A beautiful Paleudult formed in loess over dolomite residuum with a fragipan

Well developed seam in a fragipan

Red residuum underlying loess and pedisediment

Shea Stein and Freya Personius square off in a head-to-head texture contest while the rest of the team cheers them on!

2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest: Practice Day 1

Our first day of practice and orientation to Ozarks soils began with a beautiful sinkhole and karst valley landscape south of Eminence. We saw evidence of multiple colluvial layers/events, got used to the Missouri heat, and practiced gathering samples and texturing in very dry, hard and rocky soils. The team began to work on their group judging strategy as well, talking through roles and flow.

Large sinkhole depression in the Ozark karstic landscape

Paleudult formed in colluvium on a footslope adjacent to a sinkhole

The team headed out to afternoon pits in the Missouri heat

Working together on a group judging pit

2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest: Day 0

The team arrived safely in Eminence, Missouri around noon on Sunday, September 27th. Coaches went to a practice pit preview session hosted by Kerry Clark and Lindsey Andersen, while students went shopping for food for the week, and explored the Jack's Fork River, Ozark landscape, and surroundings. The team was chomping at the bit to start practice and see some Ozark fragipans!

The Jack's Fork River at our home for the week - huge shout out to Michelle and Macie Turner who run the Jack's Fork River Resort!

Kerry Clark and Lindsey Andersen lead a pre-contest coaches discussion at one of the practice sites.

2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest: Pre-Contest Travel

The 2026 Region V Soil Judging Contest was hosted by Dr. Kerry Clark (University of Missouri) and Lindsey Andersen (USDA-NRCS) with cooperation and support from NRCS program participants in and around Eminence, Missouri in the Ozarks!

Because our drive to Eminence was long, we started with a Pre-Contest Day 0 at 5am to drive south to Lansing, Iowa, on Saturday, September 26th, where we spent the day with Linda and Dennis Haugen who run the Iowisota Retreat and Education Center exploring the soils and landscapes of the Iowa Paleozic Plateau.

We started with an overview of the area from Linda, who grew up on the property. We then described two soils - one Inceptisol on a backslope in colluvium, and then a Hapludalf on a summit in loess over residuum. We finished the day with a beautiful hike out to an overlook of the Mississippi River Valley before driving to Fort Madison, Iowa to sleep!

The UMN Team ready to roll at 5am!

The team listening to Linda Haugen at Iowisota describing Paleozoic Plateau landscape and ecology

A Dystrudept formed in colluvium on a steep backslope

A Hapludalf formed in loess over residuum (the redder material towards the bottom) on a summit ridge

Group Contest Day & Drive back

 We have come to the last day of the competition! Our team was SO excited for the group pits; we established a really strong team bond and dynamic and were excited to see what we could do. We competed with lots of other teams from around the Midwest for the group pits since they were also coming from far away. 

Starting the day with a team stretch.

Then it was off to the races! We were on a private farm, and got to see great examples of colluvium and residuum in these pits. UMN has a tradition of going barefoot in the group pits at competitions. It might not look like it from the pictures, but we did our best! We were navigating through many cow piles, if you know what I mean, but still kept the tradition alive. The first pit we have was classified as rhodic, which means that it has very deep red colors.

The judgers discussing the pit.

Texture team focusing in

Color team working hard

Look at this beautiful rhodic soil! 

Our last pit of the contest was colluvium over residuum in the beautiful Piedmont. There were very strong clays and gorgeous colors.

 

We ended by packing up into our cars and beginning the trek home. Since having done the ride before, we were able to shave off a couple hours off the drive time (safely of course). We made it back to St. Paul Campus on Saturday morning. We were all glad to be home, but sad that such a fun journey had ended. We placed 15th in the competition at the end of the day. We are so happy and proud. I think I speak for everyone when I say we had the absolute time of our lives and an amazing adventure. 

A massive thank you to everyone who has supported the team!! From the bottom of our hearts, thank you, thank you, thank you! We would not have been able to do this without you. Thank you for helping us see amazing soil, learn so much, and be a part of the soil community. 

Don’t log off quite yet this year! We have a fantastic team traveling to the NACTA competition in Normal, IL this month. They will do amazing, we know it! We are also planning field days for more students to see pits, so stay tuned! 

 

Individual Contest Day

 For individual contest day, we were HYPED! One of the most fun things about individual competitions is that we have no idea where we are going! We met in a Bass Pro parking lot and started off the day with team stretches and cheers!

Forming the UMN! We then followed the caravan to an educational forest. We were ready to go!

The site was amazing; there was a mix of coastal plain sediment and piedmont soils as we moved down the hill. We got to see great examples of plinthite, discontinuities between depositional events, and stratified structures (indicating low pedogenic development). Please enjoy these sneaky pictures of our judgers hard at work during the competition!

Sampling from the pit face

One really cool thing about this competition is that while not all of our judgers could go to the individual pits, the rest of our competitors got to compete in group judging! We formed a team with Texas A&M and had a lot of fun getting to know them and learning from each other as we completed pits together.

Some of the pit faces from the group competition!

After the competition, we all came back together and enjoyed some delicious catered barbeque. Because we were in an educational forest, we decided to go on a hike around the area! There were so many signs explaining the trees (which many of our judgers were able to guess before seeing the sign), farming equipment, and other ecological scientific research (including the bug trap to monitor population change pictured here). We ended the day with a trip to Waffle House since we don’t have those in Minnesota. It was then off to bed to prepare for the group competition the next day! Here are pictures from the educational forest!

 

We love our assistant coaches!! 

 

Day 4: Last Practice Day!

 Crazy times it’s the last day of practice pits and it’s team flannel day! Team flannel day is a competition tradition, and you bet we were out there rocking it. 

Yay flannels!

Started off the day with 1 pit and 2 parent materials then human transported material in the next! 

You can see the sediment at the bottom as geogenic structure, indicating low development (some kind of a transition or C horizon)

During lunch break Nic showed us his stash……. Of rock cores!! To prepare use for a true Cr horizon in the next pit. They are now treasured possessions. We love rocks, and even seeing how the rocks had been formed through high stress was so cool!

This pit contained an A and C horizon on top of an A horizon due to human transport. This is a heavily used site for teaching.   

This pit was so carved out from the Cr horizon that we could sit in it!

We love team pits!!

We ended the day with a group pit on a very steep slope (18%!!)

Back at our Air BNB, we reminisced on all the teams who had come before us, and what pride we took in being UMN soil judgers. We are so glad to be a part of the soil legacy!