A Colfax County 4-H team and a Humphrey FFA team won first and second places, respectively, at the Nebraska Youth Crop Scouting Competition Aug. 2 at the UNL Agricultural Research and Development Center near Mead. They will advance to regional competition Aug. 30-31 in Iowa.

Teams of students (those completing 7-12^th grades) participated by completing a written knowledge test and eight crop scouting exercises in field plots. This program helps youth experience field crops in a learning environment focused on teamwork and problem solving.

The contest provides students an opportunity

• to learn crop scouting and principles of integrated pest management (IPM) for corn and soybeans in Nebraska,
• to obtain knowledge and skills that will be helpful in future careers, and
• to demonstrate newer crop scouting technologies.

Teams were expected to know the basics of scouting corn and soybean fields, including crop staging; looking for patterns of crop injury; disease, insect and weed seedling identification; and other aspects.

Results

• First Place — Colfax County 4-H (Logan Nelson, Joey Kratochvil, Brad Kratochvil, and Korbin Kudera)
• Second Place —Humphrey FFA Team 1 (Kendal Brandl, Beau Beller, and Grant Classen)
• Third Place — Ashland-Greenwood (Jared Stander, Jake Grant, Dylan Green)

Also participating were

• Humphrey FFA Team 2 (Bryce Classen, Jacob Brandl, Austen Schmidt, and Mikayla Martensen)

Top-scoring teams won prizes of $500 for first, $250 for second, and $100 for third place.

Preparing for 2017 Contest

More information about the crop scouting competition is available online at cropwatch.unl.edu/youth; see the “Crop Scouting Competition” link.

Youth are encouraged to start building their teams and preparing for next year’s competition which will be Aug. 1, 2017 at UNL’s ARDC.

This program was sponsored by DuPont Pioneer, the Nebraska Soybean Board, and Nebraska Independent Crop Consultant Association, in collaboration with Nebraska Extension.

Questions should be directed to Brandy VanDeWalle at brandy.vandewalle@unl.edu or (402) 759-3712.