The Kentucky Agriculture Training School typical offers trainings to those seeking  in-depth, hands-on information. In July 2024 we extended this training with taking on the planning and executing of the KY High School Crop Scouting Competition. This once a year competition is held at UKREC where high school teams compete in all different areas of agronomy and scouting. The winning teams went on to compete in the regional competition in the fall. 

We hosted 6 teams at 9 different stations. Each station had specialists and/or grad students that quizzed the teams on real day to day situations including diseases, growth staging, and soil properties. 

The impact this event has is that it can inspire these high school students to learn explore different areas of agriculture that they may not have been expose to before. This can be helpful as they will soon be graduating and moving on to their next stage in life, in which they may choose to follow a specific interest in agriculture. These students also may be the next participants in other KATS trainings in future years.