 The competition was the most recent Career Development Event
attended by chapters from Logan County high schools -- Mount
Pulaski, Hartem and Lincoln. Ag instructors and FFA sponsors Ralph
Allen, Betsy Pech and Jacob Hunter attended with students from their
respective programs. A group of LLCC students majoring in
agriculture, Post Secondary Agriculture Students, oversaw the
individual testing areas and assisted in compiling final results.
According to the National FFA website, Career Development Events
"help students develop the abilities to think critically,
communicate clearly, and perform effectively in a competitive job
market." Agronomy is the application of soil and plant science to
improving agriculture practices. A CDE in agronomy provides students
with an opportunity to apply their knowledge of agriculture products
by identifying them, judging the quality, testing the features and
recognizing their competitors.
Agriculture students who participated in the agronomy event
identified seeds and weed types and the quality of seed corn and
beans. In the dairy area, students were given choices of products
and asked to determine the real thing from man-made products, such
as butter vs. margarine, chocolate milk vs. chocolate-flavored drink
and coffee creamer vs. half-and-half.
Different features can identify naturally produced items from
their manufactured counterparts. For example, butter is less
colorful than margarine; chocolate milk is thicker than flavored
drinks; and numerous coffee "creamers" are actually made from
ingredients other than dairy, as stated in the ingredients. Taste is
also a distinguishing feature that separates natural products from
the others, and that is what a segment of the dairy event was
devoted to.
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Ten half-gallons of milk were to be tasted by the students. Each
jug of milk was possibly altered with an ingredient that had to be
identified. One jug was actually left plain, but some students
believed it to contain something, either by assumption or due to
their taste preference, which was also discussed.
"Smell it, taste it and spit it out," was the directive from LLCC
ag instructor Bill Harmon. "First of all, if you drink every taste
test, by the end of the line you'll be very full. In the second
place, none of the foreign items will hurt you to taste, but I don't
think you want to ingest some of them."
To name a few foreign flavors -- there was garlic in one jug;
bleach had been used to rinse a jug, to add an unseemly flavor; a
large quantity of salt was in another container; and cilantro was
added to give the impression of a plant the cow could have eaten
that caused a flavor to linger in the milk.
At the end of the evening, the FFA members were more confident in
their knowledge of raw crop products and invasive plants, and of the
outstanding features of real food products and how to maintain their
quality.
[By MARLA BLAIR]
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