Members of the West Virginia University Soils Team were not just playing in the dirt during the 2005 Southeast Regional Soils Contest held in Raleigh, N.C., Oct. 28.

The team earned a fifth-place finish in a field of 12, qualifying WVU for the National Collegiate Soils Contest at Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., March 19-24, 2006.

Auburn, Georgia, Virginia Tech, Kentucky and WVU comprised the top five teams, followed by Tennessee Tech, Western Kentucky, Murray State, Clemson, Tennessee- Knoxville, Tennessee-Martin and Eastern Kentucky.

It was an opportunity to compete among some of the top programs in the nation and show that WVU can compete with them as well,said team member Kent Smith, a junior general forestry major from Philippi.

Sophomore agronomy major Randy Riddle of Morgantown also realizes the importance of qualifying for such a large event.

Im pretty excited that we did so well and I think our success was a product of how close we became as a team,Riddle said.

Team members agree that the biggest challenge with this particular contest was getting familiar with classifying soils that were different from soils found in West Virginia.

The team arrived in North Carolina several days before the contest in order to practice and learn about the different physical and morphological properties of the soil in a different region. The students familiarized themselves with the unfamiliar soil by spending three eight-hour days practicing for the contest.

Jim Thompson, assistant professor of soil sciences in WVU s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences and first-year coach of the team, isnt surprised at the success of his soil specialists.

From working with this team all semester, I had a good feeling that they had a working knowledge and understanding on how to describe and evaluate soils,he said.

The WVU Soils Team participates in a semester-long agronomy course in which students prepare for the contest. The class meets three hours each week examining and evaluating soils on nearby University farmland.

I joined the team because I thought it would be a good hands-on learning tool and I could actually put what I was learning into practice,said Justin Barnes, a junior forest resource management major from Charlottsville, Va.It has really helped me out in my other agronomy classes.