With his past experience working at the campus horticulture nursery, fall 2025 graduate Will Dowling is putting his plant science degree to good use, managing landscaping and grounds at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo.
The Fresno native works with different trees, shrubs and grasses that support the zoo animals’ habitat and nutrition needs, while also trying his best to manage various soil types and irrigation.
His ability to connect these different agronomic variables also helped him to lead the Fresno State soil judging team to a 14th-place team finish at the National Collegiate Soils Contest held March 22 to 27 near Raleigh, North Carolina.
Dowling’s final score of 729 points at the event placed 18th individually among the competitors who were tested on their ability to identify, evaluate, classify and describe soil profiles.
Dowling also had the highest individual score, 279 points, among the three pits – holes dug into the ground – that individuals were judged on. The pits were located in the Clemmons Educational State Forest in Clayton, North Carolina and Iron Horse Farms in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina.
“It was interesting to see soil profiles that are much different than the sandy loam and hard pan that are common in the Central Valley,” Dowling said. “We had to often focus on determining the clay percentages, and we saw different drainage potential from the soil there since there is a lot more moisture.”
His finish this season was an improvement from 2025, when he finished 80th at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point-hosted event.
“Having the past regionals and national experiences made me more comfortable this time, and helped me understand what to focus on,” Dowling said. “Our coach made sure to emphasize what parts of soil taxonomy to focus on, and particularly the particle size control sections. We also needed to look for the gleyed horizons and indicators if some of the soil wasn’t draining properly so we could indicate those potential issues.”
Dowling became the third Fresno State student to place top 20 overall at the event after Juan Magana finished 10th in 2025 and Mark Castanon placed fifth in 2018.
He was followed in the individual standings this season by Fresno State seniors Mary Travioil (35th, 711 points), Sam Willis (67th, 687) and Mariela Perez-Garcia (37th, 710). Two other students, Daniela Thompson and Cristian Gutierrez, attended as alternates but were not scored in the competition.
Virginia Tech University placed first overall in the 28-team event sponsored by the Soil Science Society of America and the American Society of Agronomy. The University of Missouri and University of Maryland placed second and third, respectively.
Tegan Macy of the University of Idaho was the top individual placer among the 112 official entrants. Including alternates, the largest national soil judging contest ever numbered 338 participants.
Fresno State earned its national event bid after winning the West Region contest in October when four Fresno State students finished top-10 individually – Perez-Garcia (second), Gutierrez (fifth), Dowling (eighth) and Travioli (10th).
Fresno State competitors are part of the plant science soil judging class taught by Michael Sowers, who also works as a managing soil scientist at Valley Science and Engineering, a Valmont company.
The course emphasizes USDA methods for describing and interpreting soils for their capabilities to prepare students for careers in a wide range of agricultural and natural resource-related areas such as the Natural Resource Conservation Service, U.S. Forestry Service, Bureau of Land Management, private farm management and environmental consulting.
Sowers helped guide the team to other national trips in 2025 (16th), 2024 (24th), 2018 (15th), 2017 (20th) and in his first season as a coach with the team in 2016 (18th).
“Our students had an amazing experience learning and studying soils weathered from the coastal plain sediments (ocean deposited), colluvial sediments from old mountain ranges and residual soils weathered from saprolytic bedrock, which put their training in class and in the field to the test,” Sowers said. “They learned about identifying soil features such as plinthite (iron cemented soil), redoximorphic features (wetness indications) and kandic soil horizons (clay-enriched soil with low cation exchange capacity). The students had the opportunity to meet with renowned soil scientists from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and professors from other universities, which created an experience they will take with them forever.”
In preparation for the regional and national events this year, the team studied soil profiles in Central Valley locations and utilized support from Tulare County Resource Conservation District, plant science faculty emeritus Dr. Bruce Roberts, plant science administrator Marlene Miyasaki and several soil judging alumni.
The supporters contributed funding needed for the competition, including equipment, registration, food and travel costs.
Looking ahead, eight of the top 10 student finishers will represent the United States at the 23rd World Congress of the International Union of Soil Sciences in Nanjing, China June 2 to 7.
