For the past few years, the University of Kentucky has been hosting the state Crop Scouting competition for high school at the Research and Education Center in Princeton, KY. This competition is to test the knowledge of the teams in various aspects of agronomy, including soil science, weed science and plant pathology. The top two teams then move to the national competition where they can compete against other teams all over the nation.  

During the 2020 season, the competition had to be moved online due to the pandemic. Since this is a field scouting competition, this made matters difficult to transition into an online format. However, due to the commitment of the extension specialists and staff that were involved in the competition, and the willingness of the teams across the state, we were able to have the competition online.  

The two teams then moved to the national competition where I was able to be work at one of the stations along with another specialist from a different university. This pandemic allowed us to work between universities, in which this probably would not happen due to fact that the national competition occurred in Nebraska. This exercise proved that it would work to have multiple states coordinating to have a more diverse staff if the need arises.