After an eight year absence, the Mission FFA Chapter returned to the annual Rio Grande Valley District Plant ID contest held recently at the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show Grounds. Growth in the program at Mission High School partially drove the ability to include this contest for the students. The team members prepared for the contest by participating in afterschool practices at which they had to identify samples of grass, forb, and wood type plants.
The contest consisted of two parts. The first part had students try to correctly identify 50 common plants known in the Rio Grande Valley. The second part was a test to see if they could identify the range type qualities of certain grasses.
The Mission FFA Chapter had two teams compete. The Greenhand team consisted of: Ryan Gauna, Jacob Guierrez, Sebastian Carrillo, Edgar Placencia, Rebekah Nolan. The Chapter Farmer team consisted of: Brandon De La Cruz, Ashely Rodriguez, April Cerda, Saul Pena, Arnulfo Gonzalez.
Jacob Gutierrez and Brandon De La Cruz received high point individual honors within their teams on the identification and test portion of the contest.
# # #