The secrets of soil

What’s in Autumn Boxum’s backpack? "A color book,” says the 2019 environmental sciences, policy, and management grad. 

The guide to soil colors is an essential tool for soil judging, a competition in which students climb into prepared pits, analyze various aspects of the soil, and determine its suitability for various uses (septic tanks or roads, for example). The students whose answers come closest to those of faculty experts who have analyzed the same pits win. 

Boxum, who received the Dave and Pat Johnson Scholarship as a student, finished first in a national soil judging competition last year; the U’s team also took the top spot in the team category. 

Now, she’s working for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Wyoming, mapping and analyzing soil to help ranchers determine how much grazing their cattle can do in a given area. She says her experiences at the U led her to where she is today.

"It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done," says Boxum. "It’s very hands-on stuff that you would never learn in the classroom."

 

Learn more

Read more about the soil judging team at the U of M.

Watch Nic Jelinski, an assistant professor of soil science in the Department of Soil, Water and Climate, dish the dirt on dirt in his TED Talk presentation

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