Getting their hands dirty

This university's soil judging team won the Northeast Regional Soil Judging Contest last Friday. It's a familiar position for the little-known but highly skilled student group: Over the past 50 years, they've won 20 times.

Coach Martin Rabenhorst described the annual competition run by the Soil Science Society of America as "the equivalent of the ACC [championship]" in soil judging, which qualifies the team for the upcoming national soil judging competition.

This university fielded two teams for the regional competition held at the University of Rhode Island, which grades judges on their ability to observe and interpret soils based on the classification system put forth by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. The students spent three days last week examining practice pits in Rhode Island, culminating with the competition on Friday.

"All this practice is necessary because there is so much to know," said senior environmental science and technology major Chris Palardy. "Each soil is unique and illuminates something new about the soils of the region. In soil judging, subtle details can result in huge differences in soil interpretations."

Competitors must provide an analysis that includes color, texture and examinations of how layers of soil differ from the layers above and below it, along with other factors thathelp determine a soil's suitability for various land uses.

And this isn't just playing in the sandbox — Palardy said the level of interpretation soil judgers tackle in their competitions is highly regarded by many employers in the environmental business.

"It's probably the best thing you can have on a resume if you're interested in doing anything with soils, just because it shows commitment, it shows field skills," he said. "There's a lot of soils work involved with agricultural applications ... There's lots of federal jobs, especially with the Department of the Interior."

Soil judgers at the competition were ranked individually and as teams — in addition to this university's ‘A' team coming in first place, the ‘B' team took third, and five of the top 10 individual awards went to soil judgers from this university, including Palardy, who won first place.

"This was a really convincing win," said Rabenhorst, who is also an environmental science professor. "To have five people in the top ten. ... They did a great job."

But Rabenhorst said the overall team score is the one that "really counts" in qualifying for the national competition.

Though he doesn't want to jinx the team's chances, Palardy said he thinks the team has an advantage going into the national competition at West Virginia University in April.

"It's going to be pretty similar to a lot of the soils we have out in Western Maryland," he said. "I don't want to make any sort of prediction, but I think we should have almost home-field advantage, so I'd like to see us continue our winning ways [and] snag Maryland's third national championship."

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