By Liz Kelm
The South Dakota State University Soil Judging Team returned from the National Collegiate Soils Contest in Raleigh, North Carolina, with strong results. Competing against 28 universities and more than 300 students to properly identify and characterize regional soils, SDSU secured a 20th overall finish and a 14th-place ranking in the team judging category.
This marked SDSU’s first national qualification since coach Kristopher Osterloh, assistant professor of soils and pedology in the Department of Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science, joined the program in 2019. The trip was following the team’s fall 2025 regional championship, its fourth regional win since the 1980s.
Veteran team member Luke Desmith concluded his collegiate career with a 20th-place individual finish out of more than 112 official competitors. He also earned first-place individual honors at the regional competition.
Soil judging contests test students on skills used by professional soil scientists. Teams evaluate soils based on morphology, land site description, hydrologic characteristics, taxonomy and site interpretation for specific land uses. Unlike many contests, teams spend a few days practicing on regional soils before the contest begins.
“It's a way to learn and train on how to describe the soil,” Osterloh said. “It's not just a test of the skills that we can do here, but it's actually going out there to learn and experience something totally new and different.”
To succeed at the national contest, co-sponsored by the Soil Science Society of America and the American Society of Agronomy, the team had to adjust to soil conditions very different from South Dakota.
Source : sdstate.edu