October 18, 2007

FFA agronomy team heads to national convention

By Jennifer Larsen

News editor

A contingent of Lind adults and FFA students will leave Saturday for the 80^th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 24-27 to compete in the agronomy contest.

The Lind FFA team garnered first place at the state agronomy contest earlier this year, securing its spot at national competition.

Team members include Emily Kulm, Maria Conner, Ian Youngren, Katie Loomis and Shelby Youngren as an alternate. Bev Kulm will serve as a chaperone.

Before the convention gets underway on Wednesday, the Lind team plans to visit the University of Kentucky to visit the on-site weed nursery.

On Wednesday, Lind and about 40 other teams from across the United States will start the competition track with the written test and team activity around noon.

Individual portions of the contest are slated for Thursday morning starting at 8 a.m. Teams will find out team and individual placings at an awards luncheon on Friday.

There isn’t any shuffling or ‘brackets’ to determine what teams will compete at the next level.

“It’s not like parli pro would be,” Lind FFA Advisor Andy Williams said. “It’s very objective. Either you get it right or you don’t.”

The written test can include anything, Williams said, but a lot of the material is from the certified crop advisor manual.

For the team activity, team members are given a situation and they must work together to solve a problem. For example, an activity might be to develop a budget and a business plan for a 1,000 acre field planted to soybeans. Team members must choose what varieties, figure out what to do about certain insects and weeds as well as the costs involved in the process.

“It’s like you’re a manager or owner and you make decisions,” Williams said.

Individual competitions include soils, plant disorder identification, equipment identification, disorders practicum, insects and grain grading/seed analysis/commodity evaluation.

Each team member must identify 60 plants and seeds of weeds or crops and be able to identify insects, including the economic impact of that insect, the mouthparts and the control method.

According to the National FFA, the agronomy contest has five objectives:

• To demonstrate basic knowledge of agronomic sciences.

• To explore career opportunities, skills and proficiencies in the agronomy industry.

• To determine the ability to identify agronomic crops, weeds, seeds, insects, diseases, plant nutrient deficiencies, plant disorders, equipment and crop grading and pricing.

• To evaluate a scenario and develop a crop management plan including crop selection, production and marketing.

• To demonstrate understanding of sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship through the use of integrated pest management and best management practices.