L-N competes at FFA State Range Judging at Imperial

L-N competes at FFA State Range Judging at Imperial

On Wednesday, Sept. 25, the 2024 State Range Judging Contest was held in Chase County near Imperial, Nebraska. This is the 70th year for the contest and it was graciously hosted by the Society for Range Management, the NRCS, Nebraska Extension and the NRD. This contest is held in varying parts of the state each year and can prove to be a challenge even for those students familiar with the area.

Vying for top spot were 402 students from 41 FFA chapters including: Ainsworth, Amherst, Ansley, Arapahoe, Arcadia, Banner County, Boyd County, Burwell, Chadron, Chase County, Cody-Kilgore, Crawford, Creek Valley, Deshler, Fullerton, Hayes Center, Kearney, Kimball, Lawrence-Nelson, Lewiston, Leyton, Loup County, McCook, McPherson County, Meridian, NE Ag Academy, Norris, Ogallala, O'Neill, Ord, Red Cloud, Rock County, Sargent, Sidney, St. Paul, Summerland, Thedford, Twin River, Valentine, West Holt, and Wheeler-Central.

The Lawrence-Nelson FFA chapter was respectfully represented by Owen Smiley (junior qualifier), Jace Hoelting (sophomore qualifier), Jackson Williams (sophomore qualifier) and Dillon Laughlin (mid-school qualifier). They were coached by Erin Fay Statz (local range enthusiast).

The students were respectful and worked really hard practicing for this contest. At the practice site (open to review the night prior to contest), they were shown 21 "new to them" plants to commit to memory! Not an easy task when you are met at the gate by an organizer holding a spade and a set of rattles in his hand warning of rattlesnakes! Don't worry, they didn't see any...but they were definitely adding a level of difficulty to the contest!

The range judging contest itself is actually an extensive look at all aspects of range management. The students were required to identify 24 range plants (out of the 1,700 possible) along with their life form, life span, origin (native or introduced), season of growth, livestock forage value and growth form. These plants proved especially challenging as the hosts of the contests removed the seed head (very helpful in identification of some plants) or cut the plant down to mere inches to make participants pay extra attention to small identifiable plant traits. Many plants were familiar to the students, but many can only be found west of Nuckolls County, therefore increasing the level of difficulty for the L-N students.

Next the students were to evaluate three ecological sites in the area. These are areas each must be identified by site name, given a similarity index score, and determined a degree of use. Once the student has identified the site name based off of topography and soil characteristics, they must determine the condition of the site based off the plants present and ideally allowed for said site. This is where knowing your plants and their pedigree comes in handy! Lastly at each ecological site, there is an area that is "grazed" versus "un-grazed" and students must determine the degree of use based off of weight of forage removed.

Another area of the contest is a ranch map with a stocking rate problem, and a set of range management questions. Each student is given a hypothetical ranch and scenario on which to make management decisions. These decisions may include whether or not cross-fence, implement brush control, install or relocate water sources, etc. In addition, based off of the ranch map scenario, students must calculate AUM's (Animal Unit Months) available, AUM's needed, and whether or not to increase, decrease or maintain current stocking rates. The set of range management questions cover all areas and could be questions such as: What are two range sites in Nebraska that commonly have a water table that influences plant growth and production? (Answer: saline subirrigated and subirrigated for those who are curious!)

Now in regard to results! Lawrence-Nelson students did great! There were 197 students in the senior division (juniors-seniors) and top score for Lawrence-Nelson belonged to Owen at 52nd. Next was Dillon 87th, Jace at 94th and Jackson at 117th. Now it should be noted that Jace, Jackson and Dillon technically got bumped up a division to make a full team. That being said, they were competing against freshman through seniors rather than just freshmen and sophomores in the junior division. This was Jackson and Dillon's second ever contest and Jace's third ever contest! If they would have completed in their rightful junior division of 205 competitors, Jace would have placed 75th, Jackson 103rd and Dillon 70th!

Now, to put these scores into perspective, placings were no more than 10 points in difference, therefore the difference in your placing higher than someone else, could be the difference in knowing one plant pedigree more than someone else. A very tight competition and as a team, Lawrence-Nelson placed 29th out of 47 senior teams and scored higher than many of the FFA chapters who are from the surrounding Imperial area.

Overall, the Lawrence-Nelson students had a great year and will be looking forward to even bigger results next year!