By IAIN MCMURRAY
The Progress
The Moapa Valley FFA team is once again Nevada State Champions. The FFA soils team competed on Wednesday, Oct. 21 in a statewide competition that, for the first time ever, was held virtually.
When all the points were tallied, this year’s team came out as the number one team in the state in both the soils and homesite categories.. The team consisted of Maggie Martin, Miriam Werner, Mason Rawson and Iain McMurray.
The soils competition involves calculating the slope of a field, identifying the sand to clay ratio of the soil, determining the permeability and run-off of the field, and then using that information to determine the land class of the field.
From that data, competitors then figure out which vegetative and mechanical treatments need to be used and decide whether to recommend the use of soil amendments and fertilizer.
In this annual FFA competition, each person can get a maximum of 75 points per soil sample.
The homesite category is all about using the same information to determine which factors are most limiting to the construction of houses in the area, or whether it should be used for construction at all.
This year’s contest was different than ever before. The virtual format allowed the competition to go in despite the pandemic.
Usually a unique location is chosen and the competitors travel there and judge the soil. But this year, the soil traveled to the competitors.
The contest organizers prepared soil samples for each individual in the competition and shipped them to their FFA advisors. Teams then met separately across the state in their own chapters to compete within a 48 hour window under the supervision of their advisor.
Students remained socially distanced and the competitors were required to wear masks throughout. In addition to the individual soil samples, photos were sent so that contenders could see the depth of the pit the soil was taken from. This is used in several calculations.
The two competitions are judged separately and this year’s soil competition was close. First place award was won by Maggie Martin of the local chapter. She had a score of 126 points. Martin finished only one point ahead of competitor Norman Kington from Wells, NV.
In third and fourth places were Miriam Werner with 122 points, and Iain McMurray with 120 points. Local team member Mason Rawson placed 11th with a score of 91 points. This gave the MVFFA team 459 points, enough to beat out second place team Wells (349 points) to finish first in the team category. This qualified the local team to compete in nationals in May 2021.
Moapa Valley also came away Nevada state champions in the team homesite competition, beating out second place Churchill County. The Moapa Valley competitors swept all four top spots in this contest. In the individual competition, Iain McMurray won first place with 181 points. Maggie Martin finished 2nd with 162 points. She was followed by Miriam Werner in 3rd place (134 points), and Mason Rawson in 4th place (75 points).
Although half of the team had experience from last year, two of the members were completely new to the event. FFA Advisor, Denise O’Toole was impressed with the team’s performance.
“It takes a team to win this event and all four members supported each other by committing to practices and competing virtually,” O’Toole said.
