UNL Extension is pleased to announce six teams from across Nebraska competed in the first annual Crop Scouting Competition for Nebraska youth. It was held in at the ARDC near Mead August 6.

Teams of students (having completed 7th-12th grades) completed a written knowledge test and eight crop scouting exercises in field plots. 

The purpose of the competition was to provide 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.

2014 Results

• First place: Colfax County 4-H (Alex Steffensmeier, Joey & Brad Kratochvil, and Korbin Kudera)
• Second place: Ashland-Greenwood FFA (Samantha Teten, Claire Thomas, and Jared Stander)
• Third place: Amherst FFA (Jacob Klingelhoefer, Brandt Florell, Kalen Klingelhoefer, Ty Hadwiger and Marissa Kegley)
• Fourth place: Pawnee City FFA (Brooke Bowhay, Clayton Branek and Hayden Meyer)

Also participating were the Eustis-Farnam (Collin Thompson, Garhett Nielsen, Jordan Bischoff and Matthew Blender)  and Mead FFA (Lynn and Don Hanson, Margaret Johnson, and Kaitlynn Hunt) chapters. 

Prizes awards to the top-scoring teams were: $500 for first, $300 for second, $250 for third and $100 for fourth place.

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

More information about the crop scouting competition is available in the Youth section of CropWatch under the link for "Crop Scouting Competition."

This program was sponsored by DuPont Pioneer and UNL Extension.

Brandy VanDeWalle
Extension Educator